


Snowbound

by sageclover61



Series: Bard Assassin [8]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Assassin Jaskier | Dandelion, BAMF Jaskier | Dandelion, Communication, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Kaer Morhen, Lambert is an asshole, M/M, Multi, Non-Human Jaskier | Dandelion, Witcher Jaskier | Dandelion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23775097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sageclover61/pseuds/sageclover61
Summary: It's Jaskier's first winter at Kaer Morhen, and it definitely didn't get off to the best start, but he desperately wants to be welcomed at Kaer Morhen as Geralt's guest, or it's going to make for a terribly long winter. He's an assassin, sure, but not so much by choice these days now that the guild has burned him, so there must be more to life than that.
Relationships: Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher), Gaetan/Letho z Gulety | Letho of Gulet, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: Bard Assassin [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623745
Comments: 78
Kudos: 429





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this on and off for weeks and I'm still not super happy with it, which is why this has taken so long to post. But I hope it was worth the wait!

The next three days were hard for everyone, but they were really hard for Jaskier. If he’d been  _ more  _ human, then he would have slept for three to five days straight and once they were over and his body had completely metabolized the Fisstech, he could have moved on with his life and everything would have been great.

It would have been easier. He would have been passed off as one more of Geralt’s humans, in a place that was not really for humans but wouldn’t have been questioned because humans were harmless and he was Geralt’s.

But he wasn’t human and he wasn’t a mage and he was Geralt’s, but possibly less than everyone thought he was, even though the only thing that he’d really wanted in a  _ long time  _ was to simply be Geralt’s. And Yen’s. But this wasn’t about Yen. Not really.

This was about the fact that he had been lying to Geralt for twenty three years about who and what he was and so far Geralt had seemed to be completely okay with that, but Jaskier was Not Okay with that.

If his body would metabolize the Fisstech the way it was  _ supposed to _ , then it would be even less of an issue than if he was still human and he could just talk to Geralt about all the things they really needed to talk about that clearly Geralt was not going to initiate a conversation about. Or maybe he would….

If Jaskier could stay awake for more than an hour at a time without being so completely wiped out, and maybe if he could  _ remember  _ whether or not he’d said anything the last time he woke up.

He wakes up sometimes, his face against Geralt’s neck, as his Witcher lies pressed face to face with him. “Geralt?” he asks, sometimes, he can never remember if he already has or not. He’s so tired and everything feels so… unreal. Is he even awake? What is awake? “How can you stand, being here with me, after I’ve told you so many lies?”

But Geralt was smiling softly, before leaning to press a kiss to his forehead. “There is nothing that you could say that would cause me to leave you, after everything that we have been through together.”

“But  _ all the lies _ ,” he would sob. He stank of guilt and sorrow, a rot so foul it made  _ him  _ want to crawl out of his own skin, how could Geralt stand it?

Geralt kissed his forehead, and held him even tighter. “Your love was never a lie. Nor your kindness. Nor your desire to right the wrongs of the world with song. You offered me a kindness nobody else ever has. The one person who never once stank with their fear of me. It wasn’t a lie, Jaskier, and it was something my own mother could not even offer me.”

And Jaskier would drift away, unable to tell what was real and what was dream, what was real and what was the fantasy he wanted more than he’d wanted for anything in his life.

There were nightmares, too. Filled with the harsh shouting of how much he was a burden to everyone he’d ever cared about, and to everyone whose doorstep he had ever darkened. It hurt, but it wasn’t the truth.

It was a hard three days, but Geralt held him, and fed him, and made sure he drank some water so he didn’t get dehydrated.

But finally,  _ finally,  _ he was awake enough to sit up and coherent enough to recognize where he was and who he was with, for all that he couldn’t remember anything they might have talked about, if they’d done any talking at all.

“How are you feeling?” Geralt asked softly. He had sat up to keep from preventing Jaskier from sitting up, but their knees were still touching.

Jaskier reached to touch Geralt’s shoulder, but he stopped before he could touch him. “I love you,” he whispered. “Can you forgive me for my deception?”

Geralt sighed, and closed the distance so that Jaskier was touching his shoulder. “I already have, and I will continue saying so until you believe me.”

The bard frowned. “We’ve had this conversation already?” Had he more than dreamed it? Everything between now and approaching Kaer Morhen felt like a blur that had been more dream than reality.

“We have,” Geralt said. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

Jaskier shrugged. “We were at the gate, maybe? Someone was tantruming about Vipers being unwelcome here.”

That surprised a laugh out of Geralt. “We’ve convinced him to let you stay.”

“I never dreamed that there might come a time where I would be the one denied a place to stay for people thinking I’m something I’m not. I have no hard feelings, they’re  _ your family,  _ but how do you stand it after all these years, Geralt?” His songs have done a lot in improving the general treatment of Witchers, but humans spent hundreds of years denying them so much as a place to spend the night, and for all that things  _ had _ improved, they were still denied too frequently.

“I’m sorry, Jaskier.”

“No, no.” He shook his head. “Worse, I imagine that there’s a  _ reason  _ for Vipers to be so permanently banned from entering the Keep. What did they do, Geralt?”

“You’d have to ask Vesemir. A number of Witchers from the school of the cat are banned as well, for spilling the blood of unarmed Witchers at a tournament in Kaedwen a long time ago.”

That did not bode well for whatever the Witchers of the Assassin’s Guild had done to warrant such a firm ban. Then again…. Maybe that the whole group was indiscriminately assassins to the higher bidder was a good indication of their morality and there was probably a good reason to ban them right there.

“The assassin’s guild used to have a rule with a positive morality. No contracts against pregnant women, no contracts against children. Something changed though, because of Nilfgaard. It started at Pavetta’s betrothal banquet, and all went downhill from there.” Jaskier shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Is there anything to eat?”

“Are you feeling up to walking? There’s food in the kitchen.”

* * *

Jaskier insisted on walking to the kitchen. He was awake and restless, though it seemed his body was not ready for the task so it took longer to walk the short distance than it ought to have, even with Geralt’s help.

The kitchen was not empty. Two Witchers were playing cards in front of the fire.

“Eskel, Coen,” Geralt greeted gruffly.

“Geralt, Geralt’s bard,” One of the Witchers replied, nodding as he laid a card down. “There’s some roast and some decently fresh bread, if you’re looking for food.”

Jaskier could smell the roast, and now that he saw it on a table behind the Witcher who had not spoken, and knew that it was being offered, he flitted towards it without thinking about whether or not his body was going to obey. He was hungry. So hungry. Possibly hungrier than he’d ever been in his life and he’d been through some weird situations.

He tripped over nothing or his legs buckled right before he got to the table, and he would have banged his forehead squarely on the sharp corner of the table if the witcher hadn’t grabbed him by the scruff and dragged him back upright.

“You don’t smell like Fisstech anymore,” he said, sniffing. “But it should not have taken this long.”

“You’re thinking as if he’s just a human,” Geralt started, moving to help the other guide Jaskier to sit at the table. “He’s been through at least some level of mutation, so there’s no way of knowing how fast or slow he would metabolize something like that.”

Jaskier frowned, slightly confused. He didn’t remember telling Geralt that. Maybe it was something he’d said while he was still under the influence of the Fisstech, and he just didn’t remember? He didn’t take too long to ponder such a thing though, as a bowl of stew was set in front of him.

"How would it affect you, Geralt?" he asked after spooning some of the stew into his mouth. "Is it slower to metabolize because your heart rate is so slow? Or does it take so much more than a normal dose to cause any impairment that it doesn't need to metabolize at all?"

"Never had it," Geralt said.

"Maybe you should have tried some instead of trying to wish for a cure for insomnia from a  _ djinn _ . Some people use it as a sleeping aid."

"And yet… doesn't the assassin's guild prefer it's use when making an example out of someone?"

"Lambert," Geralt growled, as they all turned to look at the large Witcher reclining in the doorway. 

"So they've decided I've outlived my usefulness. What's new." Jaskier lifted the bowl to his mouth, wincing slightly as it brushed the injury to his palm, and drank heavily to avoid speaking further.

"That can't be it. Assassins who outlive their usefulness are left for dead in the woods, not drugged and taken back to headquarters. So what's so special about the White Wolf's songbird?"

“ _ Lambert. _ ” Geralt’s tone was frigid.

Jaskier choked on his stew. He had assumed for many long years that he would be dragged back to Oxenfurt to be executed as an example of why one should not turn their back on the Assassin’s Guild. But that knife had not been intended for him.  _ Ciri. _

There’d been a contract on Pavetta all those years ago, and now on Ciri.  _ Why? _ ’

His contract had specified dead, but you didn’t need Fisstech if you wanted someone dead.

It had to be Nilfgaard. But what possible reason could they have wanted Ciri for? She was just a little girl-   
  
_ “I thought your Grandmother’s gift had skipped you.” _

The bowl cracked, only drawing his attention back as a shard dug into the wound of his hand. He set the bowl down, and shook his hand to get a better look at the bleeding injury.

He could say the knife hadn't been intended for him, but that wasn't the whole story. Half, maybe. He still believed they wanted to set an example of him.

If they'd really wanted her alive, then framing it as killing him for being in the process of hurting her would have worked. Perhaps the plan had been to frame him for killing her, and to turn him into a scapegoat for the act, making him out to be a rogue, to gain favor with Nilfgaard?

_ But Nilfgaard wanted her alive. _ So what had been the deal with the assassin that he’d killed the night of Pevetta’s betrothal feast?

Had it really been a kidnapping attempt, rather than the assassination he’d suspected?  _ They needed answers before someone got hurt. _

“No, really. I’m curious. Is the assassin’s guild going to come here looking for you?”

“ _ Lambert!”  _ This time, it was Eskel hissing at the wolf “Not relevant!”

“ _ Ciri. _ ” Jaskier reached for a towel to wipe the stew off his hands. The blood on his hand from the broken shard of bowl had dried. “Nilfgaard wants her, and the Assassin’s guild is serving them. This isn’t the first time they’ve tried to get her, either.”

Geralt turned away from where he was holding Lambert by the neck of his shirt. “Jask?”

“Someone knew Pavetta was pregnant before you claimed the law of surprise.”

“That’s not possible. If anyone knows, it’s not a surprise that can be claimed. Destiny wouldn’t allow it.”

Jaskier wasn’t so sure about that. How had the prophecy he’d read gone? “Verily I say unto you, the era of the sword and the axe is nigh, the time of Madness and the time of Contempt."

There was a crash from down the hall, followed by a "Ciri!" and two sets of footsteps pattering down the hall away from them.

"The time of axe and sword is nigh, blood-red seeds of war are sown-"

"Foresight," Lambert growled. "Does the assassin's guild take some perverse pleasure in giving their assassins a way to see their own demises? Or maybe it's another tool with which to torture their marks."

Geralt charged Lambert and despite the second Witcher expecting it, they still both ended up on the floor.

"Boys! Take it outside!"

It had to be Vesemir shouting, the gruff voice of the eldest Witcher that Jaskier had had less than pleasant dreams about.

Jaskier wasn't  _ scared _ , he just hadn't decided about how to feel about spending Winter where he wasn't welcome.

Both Geralt and Lambert looked sheepish as they picked themselves up off the floor, but they were still blocking punches at each other as they stepped out into the hallway. "Jaskier," Geralt said, seeming to be suggesting he wanted the bard to go as well. Likely because he still wasn't ready to leave Jaskier alone with any others.

"No, thank you. I am staying right here and eating another bowl of stew. It is too cold out there, and I prefer my limbs without frostbite, thanks."

"Jask-"

"Geralt," Eskel cut in. "Your bard is safe here. Lambert is all bark and I'm willing to trust anyone who belongs to you as thoroughly as this one does."

Geralt hesitated, but Lambert grabbed his collar and started dragging him towards the front door.

Coen retrieved a plate and cut a slice of the roast for Jaskier.

“Are they always like this?” Jaskier asked.

There was a laugh from Eskel then, and the WItcher rolled his eyes as he reached for more food for himself. “Those two? Always. It usually isn’t until later in the winter though, as the cabin fever really starts to settle in.”

Coen nodded, setting the plate in front of Jaskier. “Lambert has always been an asshole, and he loves trying to get on Geralt’s nerves. It’s just how they work, and if I’m to be perfectly honest, I’d be more concerned if they  _ weren't _ acting out.”

Jaskier glanced at Coen. "Is it impolite to express my curiosity about the difference in your medallion? It looks like a Griffin?"

"It is a Griffin. I'm from another Witcher School, but I've wintered here since before Kaer Soren fell. I'm the last, I think."

Of course the most problematic of the Witcher schools would be the last standing.

Four Wolves and a Griffin.

Glancing out the window, he could see Geralt and Lambert going at it, throwing punches at each other.

It was snowing.

"Jask? Do you know why Ciri might be upset about whatever it was she was eavesdropping on?" Yennefer asked as she stepped into the kitchen.

That explained the earlier crash. "I was reciting an old Eldar prophecy? It's possible she's heard it before." He glanced at Coen and Eskel. "Lambert is mistaken. I don't have foresight. But despite being recruited by the Assassin's Guild at Oxenfurt, I still graduated Cum Laude in every liberal art."

"All seven?'' Yennefer asked.

"It's a common misconception that there's only seven. But more accurately, I took every unique course Oxenfurt offered during my time there. I graduated cum laude, despite only attending all the lectures I wanted to, which sometimes meant only attending a class once all semester… maybe let's not tell Ciri about that. I shouldn't condone skipping lessons."

"Flighty songbird," Yennefer said. It wasn't an insult. Perhaps from anyone else it would have been, but not between Jaskier and Yennefer.

"I've never been anything else." For all that he had been an assassin for decades, it hadn't stopped him from dressing in expensive flamboyant clothing or singing to audiences all across the continent. Following Geralt had been good for him. It had taken him to places he had never imagined he would be able to go, except for perhaps a single day while on a contract, and to meet new people he never would have been able to while constantly running from one place to the next, at the whims of whoever decided that someone’s death was worth more than human decency.

So of course following Geralt was nothing more than everything he had ever dreamed of. "It's been Heaven."

"Uh- we're gonna go make sure Geralt doesn't murder Lambert for being an asshole," Eskel said after a moment. "Come on, Coen."

The Wolf was followed out of the room by a more reticent Griffin. "But, Eskel-!"

The door slammed shut and Yennefer took the seat opposite Jaskier. "Have you talked to Geralt yet?"

He shrugged. "There's still more to talk about, but I did." Jaskier glanced out the window, where he could see Geralt and Lambert still going at each other, fists flying. Coen and Eskel were nowhere to be seen, but he figured it had just been an excuse to step out. “Do you think they’re going to kill each other out there?”

“Everyone knows that Lambert is an asshole, but he’s also Geralt’s little brother, so Geralt  _ probably  _ won’t kill him. Burning some of those emotions and excess energy is probably good for them."

"But we could be burning that energy in other pleasurable ways."

Yennefer smirked. "Maybe when you're more recovered. I heard there's hot springs under these ruins."

"I think this will be a good winter. The best." How could it not be? Most winters Geralt spent in Kaer Morhen, and he was left to the whims of Oxenfurt. For them to spend it together? Well, it was almost certain that there would be nothing better in all the world.


	2. Chapter 2

Jaskier would have liked to go watch the Witchers spar outside. It was free entertainment, after all. But he needed to find Ciri, because there was no telling what kind of danger could befall her in such a decrepit castle. It would be his fault if she got hurt, she’d run off because of his revelation about the prophecy.

How did she know those words? Where had she heard them before? Who would have told her?

He didn’t have a sense of smell as fully developed as the Wolves of Kaer Morhen, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t track a person. They hadn’t cleaned their keep in decades, as there was dust  _ everywhere _ . So it was easy to follow how Ciri had run up the keep, seeming to have headed for the highest vantage point she could get to.

He was standing on the last rickety beam beneath the entrance to the ramparts when something stopped him. The walkway started right above him, and he could hear Ciri talking to herself somewhere past where he could see. He couldn't make out the words, though. His hearing was usually sharper than this, but the Fisstech had really muddled his senses.

Jaskier studied the beam he was standing on with uncertainty, unsure what had stopped him. This was not the strangest of obstacles he had climbed as an assassin, and not too terribly different from Oxenfurt either. He had always sought the highest vantage point to gather his thoughts. It seemed that other Witchers who had grown up here had done the same, and that Ciri would as well.

Perhaps he should leave her be, he considered. Ciri didn't know him yet, had barely been formally introduced when the poisoning had occurred, and he could remember so little since standing in the middle of the road in Cintra.

If he could just get down, maybe he'd go out into the courtyard and watch the Witchers spar instead. Ciri seemed safe enough, and she would come down when she was ready to talk to someone.

The beam he was standing on creaked ominously, and lurched downwards.

Up, or down? He wondered. To go find something else to do, or to finish the climb to the top.

The choice was made for him as he watched the beam of wood buckle under his weight and he jumped up and forward to keep from losing his balance. Gripping tightly to the edge of the walkway, he could only watch as the beam collapsed and hit the floor below hard enough to break into a hundred splinters.

“Are you alright, Snakelet?”   
  
There was a hand around one of his wrists, and a moment later Jaskier found himself being hauled up onto his feet by none other than the eldest witcher.

“I think I’m alright,” he mumbled. The beam falling had caused him no harm. He was probably supposed to feel some sense of relief that he hadn’t been hurt, or shocked that it had given way right when he was climbing it, but he felt  _ nothing _ .

Well, that wasn’t quite right. He wouldn’t have minded going back to bed, but he also didn’t feel the overwhelming exhaustion that was the extent of what he could remember about the last week and he didn’t  _ want  _ to go back to bed. Too much time had already been wasted, so he’d just have to walk around until the sleepiness cleared up.

The elder was scowling at him. Geralt’s Vesemir, right? “I heard you coming from three stories down. I would have expected one from your school to be able to wander around  _ without  _ destroying my keep. You didn’t smell the rot from a mile away?”

Jaskier shrugged. “I’d much prefer to not slink my way through your keep like a thief in the night.” He looked down, studying where the beam had crashed. “I apologize for causing damage to that beam.”

Vesemir shook his head. “You’re Geralt’s guest, and I’ve decided to allow you to stay, for now. That could change, I suppose, if you or any of our winter guests break the rules of Kaer Morhen’s Hospitality.”

He tilted his head. “What do the rules entail?” Jaskier would have expected the rules to include some kind of restriction on fighting, but these were  _ Witchers _ . Sparring and scuffling was in their blood.

“No murder,” the old witcher said. “Everyone pulls their weight. Daily chores, and training in the mornings and evenings. Your mental facilities seem to still be impaired, so you’ll be on light duties.” Vesemir considered him thoughtfully. “Have you wintered with Geralt before? Does your sleep cycle change?”

“Oxenfurt kept a tight leash in the winters of recent years, no time to hunker down in a cozy den and rest.” What were winters like here? Jaskier wondered. No monsters, no contracts, just a pack of Witchers who completed their chores, and trained with each other,  _ and slept. _ “Never had much of a consistent sleep cycle. Sometimes I sleep at night, sometimes during the day. Depends on the contract or what’s going on. I’ve slept more these last few days than I have slept in  _ months _ .”

Vesemir frowned. “In the wintertime, this old keep is the most well guarded place on the Continent. You’ll be safe here. Sleep as much as you need to.”

“I appreciate that.” Jaskier yawned. A nap sounded like a  _ really  _ good idea, but they were still up in the ramparts and that meant climbing back down. He slouched against the wall. "Why'd you change your mind? I recall a threat that Vipers were unwelcome in Kaer Morhen." Perhaps they'd had this conversation already, but he couldn't remember. “What did they  _ do,  _ Vesemir?” That had been a topic left buried. Geralt had not even known the answer.   
  


“Someday soon, you deserve to hear the history of the School of the Viper. Many within the halls of the Assassin’s Guild would cause harm to those who claim winter sanctuary within these walls, and I would preemptively protect them. But I am not the old Witcher to tell you that tale. There’s someone I’d like you to meet, if he winters here this year. He usually chooses not to, but I think he’ll make an exception this year.”

Jaskier’s stomach dropped. He should have been able to guess at why there had been such grudging hesitance in allowing him to stay. Vesemir had been certain at first glance that he was of the Assassin’s guild, and it would be so easy to assume that any of the guild would be unable to adhere to the rules of hospitality. They didn’t know him yet, didn’t know how  _ much  _ he hated the violence and death he had been forced to create. But there was good reason the guild had been suspicious of him for so long. His peers adored their violence and bloodshed, and he had always been the outcast. "Thank you?"

Vesemir nodded stiffly. "I need to head down to the training grounds. Will you join me? I think Ciri will find her own way, when she's ready."

"Of course."

* * *

There were five Witchers on the training grounds, not the four that Jaskier had been expecting, and Yennefer was watching from a wall that was out of the way. 

"Who is the Cat?" Jaskier asked once he determined that the medallion around the unfamiliar Witcher's neck was definitely a Cat.

"Lambert's guest, Aiden," Vesemir answered. "Not all Cats are unwelcome here. Why don't you sit and watch for now, and join in a little while if you're feeling up for it." Without waiting for confirmation that he had been heard, Vesemir moved to give drill instructions to the Witchers in the yard.

Jaskier climbed the wall so he could curl up next to Yennefer. He was going to need a heavier coat because it was already cold and it hadn't even snowed yet.

"Did you find Ciri?" Yennefer asked.

"She climbed up to the ramparts and I ran into Vesemir as I was deciding it might be better to come down when she's ready." He closed his eyes as Yen wrapped an arm around him. "Why hasn't the Fisstech worn off yet?"

"I think it hit so hard because you were sleeping so poorly or not at all since the mountain. It's given your body an excuse to start trying to catch up on sleep."

That was an answer that Jaskier couldn't argue with. He'd been alone in a high stress situation, but now he was likely the safest he'd been in his life. He yawned, and burrowed closer to Yen. She was so  _ warm.  _ There had to be a heating charm on her lightweight cloak.

He wanted to curl tightly around her and sleep forever.

Yennefer prodded his pockets. “Where’s your handkerchief? If you’re going to drool all over my cloak, I want to be prepared.”

“Should be in my pocket,” he mumbled without opening his eyes. Not that it mattered if it was gone. He had a few extras in his pack, most likely. He didn’t really care about it, or whether or not Yennefer found it when she looked again. He was almost warm and very tired and it was so easy to just let himself fall asleep.

* * *

Vesemir excused himself from watching the rest of his pups’ morning training by handwaving the  _ Thing  _ he needed to check, he’d be back soon, and if they weren’t still training when he got back, they’d run the walls all afternoon.

They were  _ all  _ his pups, even the Griffin and the Cat. This wasn’t the first year Coen or Aiden had wintered in Kaer Morhen, and he was certain that it wouldn’t be the last, either. Jaskier wasn’t his pup,  _ yet,  _ but he had high hopes for the snakelet.

He inhaled the scent of the handkerchief he’d pilfered from Jaskier’s pocket as they had descended from the ramparts. It was so  _ similar  _ to the scent of an old friend, and if the stories had been true, then it shouldn’t have been possible.

Witchers all had their own unique scents, of course, but witchers from the same school had almost identical notes to them that made it almost child’s play for them to identify each other.

Younglings woke up from their first trial, their scents already changed, and their older schoolmates and trainers would instinctively recognize them as  _ pack  _ in a way that it wasn’t safe to do before the Trial of the Grasses, because it hurt too much to get attached from the beginning.

Vesemir’s friend had told him that the new Vipers created by the assassin’s guild were  _ not  _ family, and  _ not  _ to be trusted, and that their scents were so different from the original school that they might as well have been unrecognizable as Kin to those of the original School.

He had only been able to take his friend’s word for it, because Vesemir had not met many of the original Viper school and they were all but gone, but there was something  _ familiar  _ about Jaskier’s scent. It had been too long since he had seen his old friend to be able to recall his scent, but he suspected they were closer than his friend had suggested someone from the assassin’s guild could be.

“Vesemir!”

The old witcher stopped on the trail, hastily shoving the handkerchief into his pocket. There would be time to hand it over before they made it back to the keep. “Letho of Gulet,” he called. “I didn’t know you knew Gaetan.”

He hadn’t been sure whether or not the other Cat would return for another Winter. 

The Viper gave him a fanged smile. “We winter together most years. Seeing as we both had an invitation for this Winter, we figured why not.”

“You both are always welcome,” Vesemir said. “It’s good to see you again, Gaetan. Letho. I’ll walk with you up to the Keep.”

“I was curious about your summons this year, Vesemir. We haven’t spoken in  _ decades _ , and then out of the blue you send a message for me personally?”

Vesemir shifted the handkerchief in his pocket, letting just a hint of the scent waft into the environment. They were Witchers, that was all they would need for Letho to get a hint of the scent Vesemir wanted his reaction to. “There’s someone at the Keep I’d like you to meet.” But first he  _ needed  _ to know Letho’s reaction, just in case it was going to get violent. Would Letho recognize Jaskier’s scent as that of Kin? Or would Letho recognize it as like that of the Assassin’s Guild he detested with every fiber of his being?

The three of them started walking towards the keep, but they hadn’t made it very far when Letho finally said, “What’s that smell?” He stopped, scenting the air and trying to figure out what it was.

Vesemir and Gaetan stopped, Gaetan asking the Viper if he was alright, and Vesemir waited, allowing a little bit more of the scent to dissipate into the air. Friend? Or Foe?

“I don’t remember it,” Letho said. “But it feels like it should be familiar. Like I should know it.”

“Witcher but not a Witcher?” Gaetan suggested. “Definitely not a Cat. What game are we playing, Vesemir?”

Vesemir drew Jaskier’s handkerchief out of his pocket and waved it in front of Letho. “What can you tell me?”

Letho inhaled deeply, frowning in consideration. “Familiar, but unknown. Not someone I’ve met personally, then.”

“Friend or enemy?” Vesemir asked, taking a few steps in the direction they were headed.

Gaetan sniffed. “Definitely not  _ Cat _ . Not a Wolf either, but you would already know that. There is a little bit there, along with Mage maybe…. lilac and gooseberries? I didn’t know you were letting Mages into the keep, Vesemir.”

“Exceptions to  _ every  _ rule, Gaetan.”

Letho nodded, though it was clear that his attention was focused almost entirely on the scent of the handkerchief. “I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve smelled it before, or something very similar. I  _ should  _ know this scent. But it’s been so  _ long _ -”

“I agree, it almost reminds me of the slight Kin smell that the trainees would have after they passed the first trial,” Gaetan said. “But not  _ my  _ Kin. Not a Kitten.” He paused then, before looking at Letho. “You know, it almost reminds me of you, Letho.”

Letho blinked. “That’s not possible…” He frowned, and reached forward to pluck the handkerchief out of Vesemir’s hand and held it close to get a deeper whiff of the scent. “Snakelet?” he asked, bewildered. “Where’d you find a snakelet, Old Man? The Assassin’s Guild manipulated the formula,  _ there’s none left. _ ”

Vesemir sighed. “One of my Pups brought him in, poisoned by Fisstech, and barely conscious. He saved them, and made it possible for the Child of Surprise to be able to find a safe shelter at Kaer Morhen. Recovery has been slow, but his admission that he belonged to The Assassin’s Guild made me want to ensure that he wasn’t a threat to the Pups, or any of the others who winter here. I almost didn’t let him in, the first scent was so strongly of  _ Viper _ .”

“I  _ hate  _ the Assassin’s Guild, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t gotten close enough to figure out what they smell like. Their Witchers are  _ abominations _ , they do  _ not  _ smell like Kin, and they do not smell of proper Viper. Their scent is almost sick, as if one tries to compare rotting flesh to that of a healthy deer. But this-” Letho inhaled again, and this time his eyes widened.

“Not a  _ proper  _ Viper at all.” Letho grinned. “A  _ Snakelet _ . Your Pup brought home a baby Witcher, Vesemir. The very last, if my understanding of the Assassin’s Guild is to be believed. I can’t tell how old he is from his scent, but I can tell that he’s older than what I’ve come across, and each year the graduating class at Oxenfurt is sicker and  _ sicker _ .”

“I don’t know how old he is,” Vesemir said. “He looks mostly human at first glance, like he can’t possibly be much older than eighteen, but Geralt swears that he’s known him for at  _ least _ ten years. But knowing Geralt, it’s probably been even longer than that.”

“I  _ need _ to meet him,” Letho said. “I must!’ With no warning, he took off at a sprint towards the keep.

Rolling their eyes at each other, Vesemir and Gaetan had to run to keep Letho in sight, as the Viper seemed to have given entirely into instincts that insisted he needed to see the snakelet any number of  _ yesterdays. _

When they did eventually catch up, Letho had stopped right inside the front gate, watching with eyes wide at where Jaskier had curled up against Yennefer and fallen asleep.

“How is this possible?” he keened, looking over his shoulder at Vesemir. “He’s a  _ snakelet,  _ but there  _ aren’t  _ any more True Vipers. Oxenfurt’s mages took the original formula and made it a perversion! They made  _ monsters,  _ monsters who are very much not  _ kin.  _ But that-”

“Kitten!” Aiden screamed as Gaetan stepped through the gate around Vesemir, dropping his training sword and launching himself at the younger Cat.

Vesemir blinked. Gaetan's first winter at Kaer Morhen had been the year before, and he had forgotten that Aiden had not wintered that year.

Not everyone wintered all the same years, but it hadn't really occurred to him that the remains of the other schools had so much less contact with each other than his.

The Wolves of Kaer Morhen were Pack. Kaer Morhen still stood, but Kaer Seren was gone, and Stygga Citadel was gone, and Gorthur Gvaed was gone, and most of their Witchers with them. They had no winter keeps to warm themselves, and rest, and most importantly, to rendezvous and reconnect. Who was still alive after all the years of wandering separately and alone, no news of their other school mates? Letho, Coen, Aiden, Gaetan. They could  _ so easily  _ be the last living members of their three schools,  _ and they would never know _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M ALIVE. Life has been stressful..... My goal is to get one more update for each of the WIP fics posted before New Year's so I'm not sure when I'll get this updated again. I have some new and interesting ideas for where I think this is going to go though, so if you're reading this, I'm glad you've stuck around!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this chapter had a title, it would have been "Give a story, get a story". I lied to myself and wrote this instead of working on anything else because your comments fed me. Also, since I'm currently unemployed, I had more time on my hands for things like writing. You can find me on tumblr at sageclover61.tumblr.com.

Vesemir sighed at the heap of Cat on the ground. “Everyone inside,” he called out, dismissing the training that may or may not have been happening while he had been gone. Letho continued standing just past the gate into the courtyard, watching the sleeping snakelet with a strange expression on his face.

“So anyone who walks in these days is welcome, Vesemir? Even the Kingslayer?” Lambert sniped. “I thought you had something against Vipers.”

“My keep, my rules,” Vesemir growled. “And my prerogative to change them.”

“I seem to recall saving the life of an ungrateful whelp.”

Lambert scowled.

Aiden sat up from where he had been licking Gaetan’s face into submission. “Well, I for one very much appreciate it, Viper. I also appreciate you bringing this one back. Gaetan, I thought you had  _ died _ .”

“Mhph,” Gaetan grumbled as Aiden leaned down to lick him some more. “Bit of help, Letho?”

Letho rolled his eyes, grabbing Aiden by the scruff and hauling him upright. “You can have bonding time with my boyfriend later.” He sniffed Aiden curiously, and wrinkled his nose at the way he could barely tell where Aiden’s scent started and a wolf’s began. And yet, despite that, he could pick out the similarity between Gaetan and Aiden’s scents that marked them as Kin.

Aiden hissed, before turning around and wandering back over to Lambert so they could head inside the keep. Eskel and Coen had already disappeared from the training grounds.

Without conscious decision, Letho found his gaze wandering back over to the sleeping snakelet, who was being carefully picked up and cradled by none other than the White Wolf himself, with the woman who must have been their sorceress. That explained why the scents of Wolf and magic had been attached to the Snakelet’s scent.

“I’ll introduce you, Letho," Vesemir promised. “But give him a little bit to wake up.”

Letho frowned. “You mentioned he’d been poisoned with Fisstech, right? That’s strange, because for humans it’s an addictive stimulant, but a sleeping aid for Witchers. The effects don’t typically last longer than eight hours, at most, though. Sometimes longer if the Witcher in question is  _ especially  _ sleep deprived, but he can’t be, can he?”

“He couldn’t tell me what his natural sleep cycle is supposed to be. Only that he ran himself into the ground doing the bidding of the Assassin’s Guild. Dangerous, stressful, and  _ frightened _ .”

Letho didn’t have the words to respond to Vesemir’s statement. He had once known the natural winter sleep cycle of each of the Vipers who had been Kin. Winters had been pleasant, training to stay fresh and sleeping curled around each other just like a den of snakes.

Gaetan got up off the ground and stepped close to Letho. “When’s lunch?”

“Lunch should be on the table shortly,” Vesemir said. Geralt and Yennefer had disappeared inside the Keep with Jaskier, leaving only the three of them still outside. “Come on then, let’s go inside.”

* * *

Jaskier rubbed his eyes as he stumbled into the space beside Geralt on the bench at the dining table. Naps were supposed to make you feel  _ refreshed _ . He just felt groggy.

Geralt pressed a kiss to Jaskier’s neck. “How are you feeling?”

He shrugged. “I’m alright, just cold and groggy.”

Lambert placed a teapot on the table in front of Jaskier, hard enough that the cast iron clatters sharply. It’s clearly a very old piece, with interesting dents that Jaskier isn’t entirely certain he wants to know specifics of. Was that an impression of a nose?

“Thank you, I think?” Jaskier glanced around the table to determine that the place settings did not include any drinking glasses. “Are there cups for the tea?”

“Vesemir said the tea is yours. Just for you.”

Jaskier raised an eyebrow. “And he wants me to drink it out of the teapot? Like a heathen?”

“You make tea in the teapot, why not drink it that way too?” Lambert settled into a seat across from Jaskier and further away from the head of the table. “Just drink your tea.”

He pulled the teapot closer, hissing softly when he found that the teapot itself was hot, but not so hot as to burn. It was a pleasant warmth, and he had to resist the urge to place it on his lap and curl around it. Jaskier gently lifted the lid off the teapot and inhaled, curious what type of tea Kaer Morhen’s alpha would have selected for  _ him _ .

It was a strong black tea, and he was pleased that he could identify each of the spices used by scent. It would have been out of place for Vesemir to drug him, but it was nice to be able to confirm that he wasn’t being poisoned.

“I have cups,” someone Jaskier didn’t recognize said as he stepped into the dining room.

There was another witcher a half step behind him, wearing a medallion identical to Aiden’s, clearly representing the head of a cat.  _ Another Cat, then _ . “We were not all raised in barns.”

“You take that back!” Lambert cried indignantly.

Jaksier ignored the retort of the unknown Cat Witcher. Apparently Lambert was just an asshole, and that was normal. The unknown, then, was the Witcher carrying two cups. The cups were cast iron, clearly built for use by people who would be less than delicate with it.

But then there was the Witcher. His medallion was different enough that he hadn’t registered what it was, so Jaskier forced himself to look at the medallion. Like the other medallions, it was a clear depiction of an animal’s head, fangs exposed as if it was about to strike.

He didn’t recognize it at first, and was about to ask when he realized that he  _ did  _ know what it was. He knew  _ exactly  _ what it was. It hadn’t registered at first because he knew them by another symbol.

“ _ Viper, _ ” he breathed.

Geralt pressed closer to Jaskier, and Jaskier found himself relieved by the action, because he was almost certain that if Geralt had not less than subtly twined himself against Jaskier that he would have  _ run. _

The assassin’s guild symbol and the medallion the School of the Viper that Jaskier was familiar with was depicted as a viper tangled around itself. It was simple, easy to recognize, and significantly different than the symbols the rest of the Witchers wore. So why was this Witcher wearing a medallion depicted as a viper’s head?

Vesemir had  _ said  _ that there were no Vipers allowed in Kaer Morhen, although he’d been convinced eventually to let him stay. So who was this?

Was this perhaps the  _ leader  _ of Oxenfurt’s Assassin’s Guild, here to peacefully negotiate his release from Kaer Morhen back to the hands of those in Oxenfurt who would be inclined to make an example out of him?

Yet his scent didn’t share any similarities that could be found in the scents of all those who from the guild, whether they were bardling assassins, Witchers,  _ or  _ rogue mages who served the Assassin’s Guild.

If anything, Jaskier realized, the oddest thing was the fact that this strange Witcher’s scent seemed remarkably similar to his own, in what he considered to be all the same ways that had caused him to be ostracized by his peers.

“Jaskier,” Geralt said softly, “this is Letho of Gulet, and his Cat, Gaetan.”

" _ Kingslayer _ ." Jaskier knew that the history of the Assassin's Guild as told by the Assassin's Guild was probably incorrect, but  _ everyone  _ knew that Letho of Gulet, of the School of the Viper, had killed the king of Redania. Jaskier could even remember the day the news had arrived in Oxenfurt.

However, the Assassin's Guild had quietly omitted that he was still alive. A, "you kill who we tell you to kill, and not anyone else," lesson. Possibly a something and something about the consequences of going rouge, but less effective without a body, clearly.

The Viper, Letho, put the cast iron teacups on the table silently, and sat across from Jaskier, and the Cat beside him. One teacup went to Jaskier, and he kept the other for himself. "I'm an old friend of Vesemir's." 

Jaskier wondered if that meant that this was the old friend Vesemir had wanted him to hear the history of the School of the Viper from. “Tea?” he asked as he filled his own cup.

“Yes, please,” Letho said, pushing his cup forward for Jaskier to fill.

"So what's the story?” Lambert whined. “Why does someone from the assassin's guild smell like old Viper School?"

Jaskier curled closer to himself, watching as Letho sniffed the tea and then sipped it. It was nice to see that Letho had come to the same conclusion he had that it wasn’t poisoned, so he took that as his cue to drink as well. The tea seemed to ease some of the chill he still felt.

“Lambert,” Geralt growled. “ _ Out _ .”

“Or what?! You can’t tell me you’re not dying to hear the stories these two are going to tell!”

“I remember the day the messenger rode into Oxenfurt, shouting that the King of Redania had been killed,” Jaskier said, quietly. “It wasn’t too long after the trial of grasses, and standing in the rain felt like every droplet was a needle prick. It’s hard to believe that was decades and decades ago.”

“That’s a terrible story!” Lambert exclaimed.

“I didn’t have a choice,  _ less  _ choice even, than those taken as children of surprise. Or orphans asked if they’d like to go to a Witcher’s keep.” Jaskier inhaled Geralt’s scent, letting it ground him. “The Assassin’s Guild, which hadn’t existed until that very moment, stole me out of my bed and locked me away in a small dark room with classmates whose faces I no longer remember. They all died screaming.” Jaskier could remember the room, and the training that had transpired in the hours that he was not expected to be in class, but he could not remember those who had been in his year, for none of them had survived the trail of grasses, now that he was thinking about it. 

Lambert snarled, “Bloody  _ fuck _ .” Growling, he rose from his seat on the bench and wandered off in the direction of the kitchen.

“I killed the King of Redania on a revenge trip,” Letho said, smiling with all his teeth. “At his behest, the Assassin’s Guild was founded and they raided our home and stole our formula for their own nefarious purposes. They killed my Kin, everyone I had ever known, and everyone I ever loved.”

Jaskier could understand why someone might give in to bloodlust after suffering such trauma. If anything happened to his loves, he was certain he would do the exact same thing. “The death of the king came after I was the only one of my classmates to survive the Trial of Grasses, and before they tried again. The second attempt was different, and there were more survivors, but they smelled so… _wrong_ , and the feeling was mutual, I guess. They ostracized me because they didn't like my scent.”

Letho sipped his tea. "When I heard what the Assassin's Guild was doing, I went to investigate. And part of me hoped that I would recognize them as Kin. They were so young, and I knew I couldn't blame them for what happened to my family, but I also didn't want them to replace my family. And they never would have, because they smelled like sick and poisonous flesh."

Geralt pressed closer to Jaskier, and the bard inhaled the soothing scent of the tea. “That was so many decades ago. And, you know, the guild didn’t refer to all of them as witchers. I received certain specialized training in addition to being required to continue attending all my normal classes at the University, but they’d never suggested I was ever anything more as just one of their bard assassins.”

“They lied about that,” Letho said. “The trial of the grasses is only the first mutagen potion, but to survive the administering of it is to  _ be  _ a Witcher.”

Jaskier wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel about that. He had been certain that it had not been a proper dose of the Trial of Grasses and that it had not counted, but now that he was thinking about how different it had been for him, he realized that he had been mistaken about that, at least for his own potion. So he was a Viper Witcher like Letho, then, not like those he’d killed in the forest. To them, at least, since he could tell by looking in the mirror that he did not have the appearance of a proper Witcher.

“Snakelet.”

Jaskier turned his head towards the doorway, where Vesemir had appeared and was holding a large platter with what had to have been the largest roasted bird he’d ever seen lying on it. He couldn’t quite parse the Old Wolf’s expression, but it seemed almost fond.

“Mutations aren’t the only thing that make a Witcher, but we will make one out of you, yet.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to you, the reader, and especially to each of you who posted a comment on chapter 2 or chapter 3. I thought I had a to-do list and a plan that would see each of my WIP's updated this year, but your comments have left me significantly more inspired to simply work on this, and I'm okay with that. The last few weeks have been difficult for me, and I appreciate that this fandom in particular has not left me feeling like I'm writing into a void, and "we write for ourselves" inspirational speeches aside, I just really like feeling heard. So thank you.
> 
> Digital cookies if you can spot the hint to the next crossover I'll post someday.

Eventually the rest of the Witchers filed back into the dining room for lunch. Vesemir sat at the head of the table, with Letho closest to him. Jaskier had to scoot over a little bit to make sure that there was room for Yennefer on his other side, and Ciri sat on the other side of Geralt. Aiden sat between Lambert and Gaetan, and Eskel and Coen found seats at the far end of the table.

Lunch was some large bird, seasoned elk haunch, and a very large pot of roasted vegetables. For dessert, Vesemir served the largest apple pie Jaskier had ever seen in his life, and every scrap of food was gone when the meal was over.

It was a loud meal, the Witchers laughing and jostling each other as they reached for more food, often from another’s plate, and telling tales of their various hunts across The Continent during the year. Jaskier and Ciri’s plates were off limits, likely more due to not wishing to offend them than due to any set rules, but no other plate was safe, and in one memorable moment, Lambert and Eskel ended up brawling on the floor over a particular piece of elk, which Geralt ended up taking for himself while the pair was distracted.

Eventually though, the meal came to an end, as all the plates were emptied, and the arguments over who was entitled to what quieted, leaving the room silent. Filled with food, and in a warm room, surrounded by those who he knew he could trust to protect him, Jaskier found himself almost dozing against Geralt.

“Alright, Pups!” Vesemir clapped his hands together to gain everyone’s attention, jarring both Letho and Jaskier out of their almost slumber.

Letho yawned, but as there seemed to be no other reaction from anyone else in the room, Vesemir began to speak.

“Since I don’t think we’re expecting anyone else this season, and you haven’t all wintered here before, I’m going to say this once, and only once. You are all enjoying Kaer Morhen’s hospitality and safety, both through its walls, and the safety of numbers, and in return, each of you will do your part. You will each help maintain the keep, to ensure that it still stands strong, as respect for those who came before you, and for the benefit of those who will come after you. Each of you will attend morning and evening training sessions, to keep yourselves prepared for the coming season on the Path, complete your assigned chore in the afternoon, and keep the violence to a minimum.” He glanced to where Lambert and Eskel were still on the floor. "Roughhousing is acceptable, as Lambert and Eskel have so graciously demonstrated, but no blood is to be spilt intentionally. It’s one thing to be sparring to first blood, or for a wrestling match to end with an elbow to the nose, but if I find that anyone is attempting to attack another without cause, they will not be allowed back for the next winter, or ever again. Kaer Morhen is meant to be a home, and I will not allow our home to be tainted by violence. Is that understood?"

Vesemir waited until everyone had concurred, and then he continued. “Today’s afternoon chore list is as follows: Ciri, I’d like you to help Jaskier wash the dishes in the kitchen. Eskel, you and Coen are to find any unused blankets and furnish a room for Letho and Gaetan. Letho, Gaetan, there’s furs hanging near the hot springs. Lambert will show you where. Lambert, I need you to fetch a bucket of water from the hot springs for Jaskier, and then you and Aiden are tending the animals. Also, please find out how much repair the stables are going to need before the first snow. Geralt, Yennefer, I would appreciate it if you would join me in the library, so as to lay out a lesson plan for Ciri. Are there any questions, or objections to the chores or pairings?”

There were no questions, and after a moment, Vesemir nodded. “Alright. You may all begin your chores. Your time is your own after they are complete.” Knowing that they’d been dismissed, everyone filed out in the directions they had been instructed to go.

“Ciri, would you help me clear the table?” Jaskier asked once the dining room was empty.

“Sure,” Ciri answered.

Together the two of them cleared the table and by the time they were done stacking the dirty dishes onto the table next to the wash basin, Lambert had finished hauling up the large bucket of hot water to fill the basin.

Jaskier considered the teapot, and decided to simply rinse it and refill it with clean water before hanging it over the kitchen fire.

“Wash or dry?” Jaskier asked, turning towards Ciri.

“I’ll dry,” she said, grabbing the dry towel that seemed to have been left near the basin for that purpose.

Washing the dishes took longer than Jaskier was expecting it to take, simply because there were so  _ many. _ But by the time they were all washed, and dried, and even put away, Geralt had just returned to the dining room.

“Geralt!” Ciri exclaimed, running towards him and jumping into his arms.

“Hey, Cub,” Geralt said, holding her tight. “How are you?”

“Jaskier and I washed all the dishes! Just like Vesemir said!”

“Good job!”

“Hey, Geralt? What do we do with the dirty water now that we’re done?”

Geralt glanced towards Jaskier. “There’s a drain under the stand. Wait, let me help you with that,” he added when he noticed Jaskier trying to lift the basin off the stand. He put Ciri down and helped Jaskier pour the water out.

Yennefer walked into the kitchen. “Ciri, if you’re done with your chores, why don’t we work on your magical lessons? Geralt, you and the bard need a  _ bath. _ ”

“Yes please!”

Ciri went with Yennefer to the library, and Jaskier followed Geralt down to the hot springs where Gaetan and Letho were already soaking.

There was a set of cubbies by the entryway, which gave Geralt and Jaskier a place to strip and put their dirty clothing, as well as choose from a variety of old soaps and scrubs and grab clean towels for when they were done. Geralt chose a soap with a light chamomile scent.

There were a fair number of pools of water, and as they walked towards the pool of water where Gaetan and Letho were soaking, Geralt explained that each of the pools were different temperatures, starting with what could have been icy snow melt all the way to boiling water that would have been too hot for humans, but some witchers liked it.

“Do you mind if we join you?” Jaskier asked, bouncing over towards the other witchers, who had chosen a medium temperature pool on the hotter side of the cavern but not one of the hottest pools.

“Please do,” Letho answered, and they averted their eyes until Jaskier and Geralt had folded their towels at the end of the pool and slid into the water.

Jaskier hummed in pleasure as the warmth of the water seemed to seep into his bones and shifted until he was sitting between Geralt’s knees in the water. The warmth soothed his muscles and aches he didn’t know he’d been suffering, and all at once the lethargy returned like a heavy weight.

It was too quiet, Jaskier decided, so he decided to see if perhaps Letho and Gaetan were less taciturn than Geralt had always been. “Letho? Did you have a favorite hunt this season?”

Letho considered the question. “Well, I wouldn’t call it my favorite hunt, but there was a strangely simple contract a few weeks ago that turned out more amusing than anything. I will  _ never  _ understand humans.”

Jaskier smiled, shifting in an attempt to appear more invested than half asleep, with mixed results.

"Livestock had been going missing in this one village. Typically that would suggest wyvern, or werewolf if it's only around the full moon. They had no idea what it might have been, but they didn't tell me that only one farm co-op had been hit. I investigated for days, and it definitely wasn't either of those things. So I spent several nights waiting outside the same farm, waiting to see what turned up to take the livestock, and lo and behold, it was one of the  _ owners. _ "

The three witchers and Jaskier shared a chuckle over that hunt.

“My favorite contract this year ended up being a godling playing pranks on a village during the harvest festival,” Gaetan said when the laughter had calmed down. “I  _ never  _ enter a village around a festival, but someone sent their daughter into the woods to get my attention. I’m not sure how old she was, but she was definitely younger than your Ciri. They just sent her out into the woods all by herself, hoping I was somewhere around that I’d rescue her before something ate her.”

Jaskier winced, and found himself gripping Geralt’s arm tightly for comfort. Who would do that to a little girl? What if there had been no Witcher? Or if certain villager’s superstitions about Witchers eating children had proved correct? He  _ knew  _ no Witcher would ever eat a child, but there was an entire lullaby about it.

“I heard her screaming before anything decided that she would make a nice meal, but sometimes I can’t help but wonder what would have happened to her if I hadn’t been around.” Gaetan shook his head. “They didn’t tell me they were being terrorized by a godling, or that the godling had a pretty good reason for being there.”

“How did you handle it?” Geralt asked.

Gaetan shrugged. “I talked to the godling. Nobody had died, and it hadn’t even really hurt anyone, just… pranked the deserving in ways that had left the village angry and embarrassed. How does it go? We can kill all their monsters for them and they’ll never understand that things like noonwraiths only exist because of the pain  _ they  _ cause.”

“If there were no humans, there would be no monsters.” Jaskier knew it was an exaggeration, but every supplementary detail he’d learned about monsters from Geralt over the years had all made it seem like humans were most of everything that was wrong with the continent.

“The monsters would just be different,” Geralt said. “There were monsters before the conjugation of the spheres.”

They lapsed into silence, until Jaskier sleepily asked if Geralt minded washing his hair for him.

Geralt did not mind washing Jaskier’s hair for him.

If Jaskier had not been almost asleep, he might have asked if he could wash Geralt’s hair, but he was uncertain if Geralt would have been comfortable with him doing that in front of these Witchers he did not know well.

“Could we sit in the kitchen for awhile?” Jaskier asked after his hair was clean. “There’s nothing else to do before dinner, right?”

“That’s right,” Geralt answered. “Evening training comes after dinner, and Vesemir said you’re on light training until he clears you. Do either of you play Gwent?”

“I love a good game of Gwent,” Gaetan answered. “You  _ have  _ to see the deck of cards the godling gave me.”

Letho yawned. “It’s warm in the kitchens, right? I think I would like a nap.”

“You’ll be in good company,” Geralt replied, smiling at the bard sagging against him.

It took a few minutes for them to all get out of the water, dried off, and into spare clean clothing kept in the cubbies for this purpose, and then they went to the kitchen.

Jaskier grabbed the too-hot-for-human-hands teapot straight out of the fire and curled up on the pallet set up not far from it. It was nice and toasty against his stomach.

Letho chuckled. “Definitely a Viper,” he whispered. “May I join you?”

Jaskier nodded as Letho settled against him on the pallet. He inhaled the Viper’s scent, letting out a pleased hum when he found that it was pleasant and familiar in a way he couldn’t really explain.  _ Safe _ , if he was to hazard a guess.

Geralt found himself smiling over his hand of cards an hour later, Jaskier and Letho both firmly sound asleep, coiled together around the tea kettle just like their school’s namesake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank commenter RageQueen89 for providing the mental image of Jaskier curled around the teapot.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nobody knows what the author is going to do, least of all the author.

It was after dark by the time dinner was finished, so after dinner, the Witchers and Jaskier went to the Salle for evening training.

Vesemir considered the seven Witchers from four schools. It would certainly be an interesting winter, being able to sharpen his pup’s fighting skills by pairing them off against unfamiliar fighting styles. He couldn’t pair Jaskier off until they all had a better understanding of his skills and limitations, it wouldn’t do him any good to cause him irreparable harm because they didn’t understand what to expect from his mutations.

“Why don’t you all start off with basic sparring against your normal sparring partner, I want to see what bad habits you’ve already picked up from each other. Lambert, with Aiden, Eskel, with Coen, Letho, with Gaetan. Geralt, you’re with me. Jaskier, why don’t we get you set up with the training dummy. Did you bring your own weapons?”

Jaskier considered for a moment before pulling a dagger out of the heel of his boot. It was not a very nice dagger, and even he knew that. He’d known that the moment that he’d seen it at a market stall and insisted on buying it. The handle was barely tied on with a twine, and it was as unbalanced as a weapon could possibly get.

“I wouldn’t be inclined to refer to that as a weapon,” Vesemir said, slowly, as though trying to comprehend what  _ exactly  _ he was looking at.

“I’ve had worse,” Jaskier said, because that was true. He’d picked up a habit of picking up and discarding knives and daggers for each contract he’d had to fulfil for the guild, and finding the worst or the strangest had become something of the norm.

“I find that hard to believe. How did you even end up with something like that?”

“I picked it up for three copper pieces somewhere north of Cintra about three months ago.” He’d picked it up on his way to Cintra, knowing that he needed a new weapon for the last contract he knew nothing about….

This was the dagger he’d purchased to murder Ciri with. He hadn’t known at the time that he was going to decide even before finding out who it was that he wasn’t going to complete the contract. Or that he was going to be stuck in the conquered country for months without any news at all.

Jaskier slowly put the dagger back in the secret compartment of his boot. “I can’t do this. Not today.” He turned around and stalked out of the Salle. He should talk to Ciri, he decided. Maybe that would help.

* * *

"Jask-"

Geralt looked like he was about to follow Jaskier out of the training room, but Vesemir shook his head. "Let him be, Geralt." Daily training with the Witchers who wintered on the keep was important because it kept them all warmed up and in shape for when it was time to send them back out onto the Path.

A slow Witcher was a dead Witcher and it was Vesemir's responsibility to make sure his pups survived.

But it was also important not to push them any more than they could handle and Jaskier wasn't his pup, yet, and there were more important things at stake here than his rules.

Jaskier's scent had been strong with sadness, and stronger still with shame, and he didn't need the rest of them harassing him before he got himself straightened out.

Vesemir wondered if Geralt had entirely missed that Jaskier was inhuman solely because his emotions were as open as any human child's were, and if Geralt had incorrectly assumed Jaskier had been only eighteen at their first meeting, would have expected him to be little more than a child. 

Geralt was looking at him with a strange expression on his face and Vesemir wondered if maybe he should have tried harder to rewrite his yearly welcome home speech.

"Geralt, why don't you start on the training dummy. Lambert, why aren't you and Aiden sparring yet?"

Vesemir was looking forward to this winter. It was nice to have a kid in the castle again, and he hadn't seen Letho in far too long, and he was pretty sure all his pups had found some happiness, or at least, found some semblance of peace on their paths, and that was more than he'd ever dared to hope for them. 

The first sparring match was slow, as Vesemir had expected it would be. A familiar almost demonstration that didn't leave much for him to miss while watching one of the other pairs. It was a warm up, not a rush to first blood. 

This room contained every Witcher that Vesemir  _ knew _ still lived, and there was something reassuring about being able to see how some of them sparred when they traveled together.

Coen had been the first Witcher from outside the School of the Wolf to periodically winter in Kaer Morhen. He had been friends with Eskel and friends with Lambert individually for decades, and it had been only logical for him to start wintering in Kaer Morhen after Kaer Seren had been destroyed. Vesemir wasn’t certain, but he was pretty sure that there was more to whatever he had going on with Eskel, not that Vesemir would ever be so impolite as to  _ ask _ .

Then there was Aiden. Vesermir could distinctly remember the first winter Lambert had come home after meeting him. It had taken  _ days  _ for the scent of sex and Cat Witcher to dissipate, and the further into winter they got, the more and more that Lambert smelled like loneliness.

Lambert was his grumpy pup, still just as angry at everything and himself as he had been as a child, even a hundred years later, and they still clashed no small amount. But that wasn’t mutually exclusive with the fact that he was still Vesemir’s pup, and Vesemir still wanted everything for his pups that they had been trained into thinking they didn’t deserve.

The old trainers were all dead, and only Vesemir and these pups remained, and it had already been well past time to let go of the old teachings that were of no benefit. And so Vesemir did the only thing that he could do, which was to partake of Lambert’s unbearably strong White Gull on an evening after everyone sans Lambert had gone to bed, and listened to him ramble about his boyfriend for a while. And then, before winter was over, told him that in no uncertain terms was he to forgo bringing Aiden to the Keep the following winter.

Aiden didn’t winter in Kaer Morhen every year, and some years he convinced Lambert to Winter with him elsewhere, but it was a happier time for everyone and that was what mattered.

Gaetan had only wintered in Kaer Morhen once before, the previous winter. Coincidently, the previous year had also been a year that Aiden had not wintered in Kaer Morhen. Vesemir wasn’t entirely sure the details of why the youngest Cat had found himself there, except a mumbled something or other about Geralt inviting him. Geralt had also not been there the previous winter, so he had been unable to pry the details out of the most taciturn of his pups.

Now there were also Letho to add to the list of winter residents. He had not seen Letho since even before the pogrom that had wiped out most of the Wolf School decades earlier, but Vesemir knew the Viper well enough to know that if Jaskier stayed in Kaer Morhen after winter ended, Letho would be back, if he left at all.

Jaskier's story was a strange one. Lambert might have been unable to sit and listen, but that had not stopped Vesemir from eavesdropping.

For Jaskier to have been the sole survivor of his version of the stolen formula of the Viper Trial of Grasses, and to recognize the sickness that Letho referred to in the later graduates of the Assassin's guild without exhibiting any signs of it himself, then it was possible that Jaskier's grasses had been an only slightly modified recipe of Letho's school, or even entirely unmodified Viper School mutagens.

The control for the entire experiment.

* * *

Yennefer and Ciri were in the library when Jaskier joined them.

"Jask!" Ciri exclaimed, leaping into Jaskier's arms. “I thought you were busy training!”

“I’m too tired, so I’ve been excused.” He tried to smile, but he could only manage a small one. It was absolutely a lie, but he wasn’t sure what truth he could even think about saying to her. That he was trying to avoid having a meltdown over a weapon he’d purchased?

He certainly wasn’t going to tell her that he had once been hired to kill her. He’d never had any intention of harming her, she was Geralt’s child of surprise. Their  _ daughter _ . And he’d known her since she was a small child, because he had been seeing her every year without Geralt’s knowledge.

“Playing hooky,” Ciri giggled. “Eist says, said- Eist said that sometimes you need time to yourself and that’s okay.” Her arms tightened around Jaskier, tightening her hug. “Everyone needs a mental health day sometimes.” 

Witchers, real Witchers, not whatever he was, didn’t get mental health days. They didn’t take vacations to the beach, and they didn’t retire. They died when they were too slow and the monsters got them. Geralt had always said that was just the way of things, but Jaskier always hoped that there was something he could do about it. And now they had a daughter. A daughter who needed more from them than to endlessly fulfill monster contracts until they died of boredom from the monotony.

“Well, I think that would be a wonderful idea,” Yennefer spoke, tearing Jaskier out of his thoughts. He turned to look towards her, unsure as to where she was going with what she was saying. “We’ve all had a difficult week, and since we’ve agreed that Ciri’s lessons can be pushed back until tomorrow morning, why don’t we all see about finding our way into that nice, comfortable tower that Geralt told me about, and we’ll see how long it takes them to find us?”

Ciri giggled again, and Jaskier somehow managed to find a weak smile. More exploration, followed by more trying to hide his emotional turmoil from the source of it. What could possibly go wrong?


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get this chapter up yesterday, but I didn't think it was long enough so I wanted one more scene. If I was doing chapter titles, this chapter would have been either Give a story get a story part 2 or give a story get a story: Scales and Moggy edition.

Exactly everything, as it turned out. But maybe he was just prone to hyperbole, he was a poet after all.

Jaskier sighed. Playing hide and seek in the tower with Ciri should  _ not  _ have been this nerve wracking. She was good though, he had to give her that.

They’d probably found themselves in the wrong tower, for one thing. This one was not Geralt’s tower, with cozy rooms. This was the remains of a great destruction, and possibly having involved a great massacre but his still muddled senses did not detect anything of the very dead variety so they were at least that lucky.

There were walls that were definitely structurally unsound, with ancient debris haphazardly lying everywhere. It was easy to see why Ciri had taken a particular childlike joy in scuttling off out of sight, but that did nothing for Jaskier’s nerves.

In the minute he had counted for her to hide, she had somehow managed to cover everything so thoroughly with her scent that it was impossible to track her that way.

Trying to track her that way would have been cheating, but more than an hour later, Jaskier was pretty sure that no one would care that he was cheating because at this rate he was going to have to explain to everyone how he’d manage to lose the Child Surprise in a tower they probably weren’t supposed to be in.

"Is she still here?" he asked, glancing over at Yennefer, who was having far too much fun reclining on a fallen pillar and watching him struggle.

"I didn't feel any chaos that would suggest she portalled out of here, and I'm guessing she didn't leave this tower through the door behind you."

Jaskier sighed. Closing his eyes, he listened as deeply as he could. Under normal circumstances, his senses were better than those of the average human. He could parse out every heartbeat in a room, see things from further away, track almost anything by scent, something humans for the most part couldn’t even attempt.

The problem with trying to scent Ciri was that her scent was everywhere. As though she had intentionally brushed against everything to prevent tracking her that way. It was distracting. 

There were more potential hiding places when you were small. Places you could squeeze yourself into where someone larger wouldn’t be able to get into. He could remember doing the same thing in his youth, though he had been intentionally hiding from the adults he had feared would harm him. This was a game. A game that was supposed to be fun.

Ciri’s scent indicated that she was happy and healthy. She grieved for her family still, but that was normal and it didn’t stop her from experiencing joy. They were playing a game that Jaskier thought provided an adequate distraction, but here he was worrying that he had lost her.

Heartbeats were ambient noise that was usually tuned out without any effort. Focusing on what he could hear, Yennefer's heartbeat was the most obvious of the quiet sounds. The next obvious noises were what he would consider to be ambient castle noises. The creaking of the old walls, water dripping from a leaky ceiling, and the loudest, the wind against a window he couldn’t see from here, rattling and shaking.

“Yen? Do you hear a window?”

“Maybe some shutters rattling? The window might be open.”

It did feel colder than it had been when they had come up here. Was it possible that Ciri had opened the window to find a better hiding place? Hopefully not, but he should start there anyway, just in case.

Navigating the rubble to find the open window was difficult, but eventually he managed to work his way over to where the shutters were clacking against the window on every gust of wind. 

It was chilly by the open window, and Jaskier shivered. He couldn’t shut the window yet, not until he knew for certain whether or not Ciri had climbed out. He really hoped she hadn’t. Geralt would kill him.

He waited for the moment the shutter fell silent, a moment of silence after the last gust of wind and before the next gust blew, and in that moment he listed for the heartbeat he hadn’t been able to hear over the window.

It took him several cycles to pinpoint the sound, but he finally managed to pinpoint the gentle rhythm he was looking for. A faint and consistent heartbeat that could only belong- to someone who was  _ sleeping? _

Carefully moving the beams that were blocking his view of the space beneath the window, Jaskier discovered that part of why it had been so difficult to locate Ciri was because she had fallen asleep out of the way, and likely hadn’t even realized how long it had taken him to find her.

“Aww, Ciri,” he whispered, carefully scooping her up out of her hiding place and carrying her back to Yennefer. She had the right idea, really, he thought. A rest in the comforting embrace of timeless oblivion, drifting in a place where there were no worries and no fears.

“Let’s head up to bed,” Yennefer said when she could see the expression on Jaskier’s face. “Geralt’s evening training session should be over soon, and it’s probably time for children and bards to go to bed.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, easily falling into step behind Yennefer as she led the way. It was so easy to just give in and follow.

* * *

“How is he doing?” Geralt leaned against the doorframe into his quarters having just gotten back from evening training. He kept his voice quieter than human senses would have picked up on, but he knew Yennefer could hear him. Jaskier possibly could as well, but Jaskier was asleep, tucked between Ciri and Yennefer, and seemed unlikely to be disturbed by such a low volume. Vesemir had stopped him from following Jaskier out of the Salle, and he thought maybe he understood why, but that didn’t mean that he hadn’t been worried about whatever had caused Jaskier to walk out.

There was still so much he didn’t know about his bard.They might have talked enough for Geralt to make sure that Jaskier knew that he wasn’t angry about the fact that Jaskier had kept most of who he was a secret, but that didn’t mean that they’d had time for Jaskier to talk about what it even meant that he had been apart of the Assassin’s Guild.

They’d traveled on and off for twenty years, and Geralt had never once suspected that his friend and lover was anything more than a human with the short lifespan to boot. And yet,  _ he wasn't.  _ Because somehow he was the closest thing to a Witcher of the school of the Viper that the Assassin’s Guild had ever managed to make. Close enough that  _ Letho,  _ of all Witchers, could say that he smelled like Kin.

"He's rattled," Yennefer finally answered, keeping her voice equally quiet. "I'm not sure why he might have walked out of evening training, but I think it might have something to do with Ciri."

“Do you know anything about the dagger in his boot?” Geralt asked. “I didn’t even know he carried a weapon.”

Yennefer sighed. “You’ll have to talk to Jask about that yourself, it’s not my place to speak of it. You know, when you first brought him to me in Rinde, I was afraid that you were hurting him. That you had only brought him to me because you felt remorse for taking it too far. I was wrong, but I knew what he was and feared for him. And the number of times I found him suffering for the actions the guild required of him…”

Geralt sighed, even as he moved to join the others on the bed. He’d known that Jaskier had a complicated past, had known that even before it had all but been confirmed that Jaskier had been a part of the infamous Assassin’s Guild, but something told him that whatever secret the knife held, it was even more complicated than anything else. And if it wasn’t handled carefully, it could potentially break Jaskier.

It hadn’t been an accident that he and Ciri had happened upon Jaskier and Yennefer on a deserted road. It hadn’t been an accident that Jaskier had known Ciri was being tracked by other more dangerous assassins. Whatever half truth Jaskier had told him about what had happened at the banquet, there was more to all of it.

  
Whatever secrets Jaskier had kept so well, Geralt knew that they would be hardest for Jaskier to reveal to them. He was expecting judgement, but he would not receive it here. All of them had done terrible,  _ awful  _ things in their long lives, and found ways to atone and move beyond them. Jaskier would be no exception, but Geralt also knew that things like this could take time and patience to come to terms with and they couldn’t push Jaskier into doing so before he was ready.

* * *

Eskel escorted Gaetan and Letho to the room he and Coen had prepared for the duo. “Geralt has an entire tower to himself, the lucky bastard. Lambert and I have rooms in the next tower over, but you two should be good here in this hallway. Vesemir’s room is upstairs by the library, keep the noise level considerate or he’ll make you regret for the rest of the winter.”

“Is that a challenge?” Gaetan purred.

Eskel smirked. “I won’t stop you, but Vesemir has been known to come up with good incentives not to.”

“What could he possibly do?” Letho asked.

Eskel’s smirk grew. “Well… their first winter here, Aiden and Lambert had to sleep at separate ends of the keep for most of the winter and the next winter they came back, Lambert moved to my tower. It’s further away from Vesemir’s rooms than Geralt’s tower, but Geralt’s tower is taller.”

“We’ll keep it down,” Letho said. Vesemir was an old friend, but Letho wasn’t ready to try his patience just yet. "So this is to be our room for the winter?" He opened the door.

Eskel nodded. "Coen and I made it up for you with clean linens and blankets. I'll leave you to get settled. Morning training starts just before dawn." He turned and started walking towards the staircase at the end of the hallway, but before he was out of sight, he turned back to look back over his shoulder. "That was Lambert's old room. Also, keep an ear out for Ciri. She’s a wild thing." 

Gaetan scowled as Eskel disappeared. "We're being  _ hazed _ ."

"Let it go, Moggy. If it's an issue we'll just find a new room tomorrow. Maybe one of the other towers is out of use."

They stepped inside the room and found it warmer than they were expecting. The fire was low, and there was a small stack of firewood nearby. The bed was made with clean but musty linens and several warm furs with a small stack of extra furs on the chest by the foot of the bed. That was the extent of the room being presentable.

There was a broken desk surrounded by clusters of parchment that looked like they’d been swept off the desk in a fit of anger. There were also shards of broken glass that was mostly contained to that area of the room.

“What do you think happened?” Letho asked.

Gaetan shrugged. “I don’t know Lambert any better than you do. He’s just a grumpy asshole.”

“Your brother sure smelled happy. It was  _ disgusting _ .”

“Aiden’s always been a few nails short of a birdhouse.” Gaetan wandered over to the far side of the chest, scowling at the mess on the floor. “We should probably clean up a bit, even if we end up moving rooms. Wouldn’t want Ciri to get a foot full of glass.”

Letho shrugged. Cleaning up after Lambert’s mess wasn’t their job, but he would have felt a little guilty if the cub was injured by it. “I doubt he left anything as useful as a broom in here.”

“I’ll just check one spot.” Gaetan crouched on the floor and peered under the bed.

“I’m pretty sure you’re not going to find a broom under there.” Letho checked the quantity of blankets on the bed and decided it wasn’t enough, so he started unfolding the pile on the chest to add to the bed.

“You have got to get a look at this,” Gaetan said, shifting until he was underneath the bed.

“I am  _ not  _ following you under there.”

“There’s at least one unopened bottle of White Gull. And maybe some potions? Also, who the fuck puts bombs under their beds? FUCK!”

Letho rolled his eyes, and was about to offer to fetch a broom when he saw that there was already a broom leaning against the wall next to the door. “Looks like someone decided that we  _ should  _ clean up, there’s a broom by the door.”

It took them less than fifteen minutes to have the floor of the room spotless and the space under the bed cleaner than it had ever been. Letho had also taken the opportunity to see what Lambert might have left behind in the chest at the foot of the bed.

The answer was nothing of value, not that Letho had really been expecting Lambert to have accidentally left behind anything more important than the grapeshot and potions under the bed. There seemed to be some clothing that still smelled faintly of Lambert, really old clothing that was probably too small, and a scarf.

“I remember that scarf!” Gaetan exclaimed. “I gave it to Aiden for Yule one year when we were kittens.”

Letho sniffed it curiously. “Just smells like asshole now. Why don’t we get plastered on one of those bottles of White Gull and call today a wash.”

There weren’t any glasses, so they crawled into the bed with the bottle, Gaetan curling up on Letho’s chest just like he always did.

They passed the bottle back and forth without a word, Letho lost in his thoughts as he tried to figure out how he felt about the fact there was another snakelet in the Keep. It hurt, an ache deep in his chest, but he didn’t think it was entirely about Jaskier.

“Ducat for your thoughts, Scales.”

Letho sighed. “I don’t think I can bear to lose another family again. It’s been a hundred years, but it still hurts so much.” And to know for certain that Jaskier had been mutated before he had slayed the king, that meant he could have been training his snakelet all these years. Training him and looking after him and keeping him out of the grasp of the guild that had harmed him so deeply he didn't even know he was supposed to take care of his weapons so the weapons could protect him in return.

A Witcher without his weapons was a dead Witcher.

"I can't help but feel like I've failed Jaskier. But what could I have offered him? Gorthur Gvaed is  _ gone _ . They made sure of that. We don't even have a place to winter every year." As long as they were mindful, they could always winter here. But nothing lasted forever and Letho wasn't sure he'd survive losing them. Seeing them just occasionally was easier.

Yet he couldn't abandon the snakelet, either, and there was no real way of telling what Geralt was going to do. The path was no place for a young daughter, and it wasn't like the Keep was going anywhere. There was no way they were leaving come spring. 

"After the citadel fell to ruin, we had the caravan. But it's long scattered now, the School of the Cat fallen to the tragedy that is our wrong mutagens." 

Letho scratched Gaetan's head as his cat shook.

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm just a bomb waiting to diffuse. I massacred that entire town the fall before last winter, Geralt would have been well within his rights to kill me. I was so hungry, Scales. I hadn't eaten in weeks, and what did Geralt do? He hunted a deer for me and watched as I ate the whole thing raw, and then he said I would be welcome in Kaer Morhen for the winter. He wasn't even here last winter, but he wasn't wrong. It was quiet, last Winter. Eskel and Coen and Vesemir. I can't remember whether or not Lambert was here too." 

"Oh, Moggy." Letho took a long draught from the bottle of White Gull before passing it back to Gaetan. "Geralt would have been a hypocrite, you know, if he'd done anything. He's the Butcher of Blaviken, after all. But he can be insufferable sometimes when it comes to moral high ground."

"We should probably go to sleep," Gaetan said, draining the rest of the bottle and tossing it aside. "Morning training starts just before dawn."


	7. Chapter 7

Ciri and Yennefer went down to the hot springs well before dawn for their morning bath, leaving Jaskier and Geralt alone in Geralt’s tower. Jaskier was tuning his lute while Geralt was darning a pair of socks, mostly for the sake of keeping his hands busy.

The silence was tense, because Jaskier had come to the revelation that he  _ needed  _ to talk, and wasn’t entirely sure where to start. He sighed, fiddling with one of the strings. “I’m not sure where to start, but I need to tell you about the guild and the dagger and the secrets. The half truths and the lies and-”

“You don’t have to tell everything all at once,” Geralt said. “But I think you could start with Pavetta’s betrothal, if you like. Or perhaps the dragon hunt?”

Jaskier sighed. “Either would be perfectly respectable places to start, I suppose. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I start the story twenty years ago in Posada?”

Geralt gave him a small smile. “I thought you were an eighteen year old, with no sense of self preservation. And possibly a death wish.”

“I always figured the guild would tire of me eventually and burn me.” Jaskier put the lute down. “I genuinely didn’t know they’d given me enough mutations to make me a Witcher. I was always just a bard required to meet a quota of contracts. An outsider of the guild’s actual Witchers. Who I guess according to Letho are not actual Witchers. It’s a lot.” Jaskier shook his head. “I became Jaskier the Bard as a facade, in an attempt to distance myself from the guild. It failed somewhat spectacularly. I loved almost every second of being your traveling companion. I thought it would be a bit of a safety net. Who would go after the world’s most famous Witcher?” Jaskier pulled his knees up, hugging himself. “What’s one Witcher when they orchestrated the demise of Letho’s entire school?”

Geralt put down the socks and reached to pull Jaskier onto his lap. “I would have protected you to the best of my abilities. You held your own when they attacked us outside Cintra.”

Jaskier  _ flinched _ . “ _ I’m sorry, _ ” he whispered.

Geralt rubbed Jaskier’s back gently. “I don’t think it’s your fault Nilfgaard or the Assassin’s Guild found more than one way to track Ciri, but maybe you could explain your thought process for me, hmm?”

The bard inhaled with a shuddering breath. “I suppose I should start with the dragon hunt, and I guess I should start by telling you that I killed Eych of Denesle because he was another contract on my list for the guild. And then I had to go back to the guild because they had summoned me, and you don’t ignore summons like that if you want to live. There was a short list of contracts that I pursued between Oxenfurt and Cintra, and then they sent word that what was left of my list had been replaced with a single target, details unknown. It was incredibly suspicious, Geralt, because that is not at all how the guild generally operates.”

“I had wondered why you were showing such an attachment to those poisonous berries. I think you could have chosen a more merciful death, though. Then again, going after that defenseless creature…” It wasn’t Geralt’s place to judge, and if he was being honest, if it hadn’t been Jaskier it would have been someone else. The knight had been unbearable.

“You still thought I was human when you told me not to eat them, what would have happened if you had eaten them?”

“I’m not sure I could eat enough of them to die, but more than a handful or two gets uncomfortable. Not bad enough to require a golden oriole, but it’s usually better to just find a squirrel or something.” Time was hard for a Witcher, but Geralt could distinctly classify the bleak sea of years on the path as Before Blaviken, After Blaviken but before meeting Jaskier, and After Posada. If the years before Blaviken had been bad enough, the years after Renfri had been even worse. There had been very little coin, and even less food, so he’d often found himself half starved and scavenging for whatever he could eat. Traveling with Jaskier had definitely been an improvement.

Jaskier tilted his head to smile at Geralt. “It saddens me to hear that your path was so difficult you had to resort to eating poison, but I’m glad you were able to winter here where supplies were not so sparse. That’s how it works, right? No matter how lean the path you travel during the rest of the year, winters are for training and repairs and recovering?”

Geralt nodded. “Winters were good.”

“Good.” Jaskier leaned into Geralt’s side and lapsed into momentary silence. “After we parted ways on the mountain, Yen portalled me near Oxenfurt so I could get back to the guild. I’d been summoned, but I was also fearful about how strange it was that the contract had been so close to us. Even if Eych had not been the contract, there’s no way you wouldn’t have been up there, and I would have been right behind you.”

Geralt considered. “If I had agreed to your idea to leave and go visit the coast, what would have happened?”

“The guild would have declared me a traitor sooner, they would have hunted us for sport. I imagine you started working your way towards Cintra as soon as we parted ways, right? You might not have been able to get to Ciri before the guild started tracking her. Although… it’s strange, really. I picked up a dagger on my way to Cintra with what I knew would be the last contract. They didn’t tell me who it would be, only that I was to wait in that area until they contacted me again, and it was weeks that stretched out into months, and then Cintra fell. On that last day, Yennefer and I were just standing in an alley off to the side of the main road, waiting for an unidentified tracker to get close enough to see. I had finally guessed that it might be you and Ciri because she could tell that you were getting closer, but we had no real way of knowing who it was or what was going to happen. They wouldn’t have sent those other assassins if they weren’t done with me, too, and I guess I might have come to realize it had come to that, as well.” Jaskier sighed. “Maybe I waited too long to walk away from them, but that part of my life is now a firmly closed book.”

“The blade poisoned with Fisstech,” Geralt said slowly.

“Hmm?” Jaskier asked. “Definitely uncommon in the field. There’s some interest in the drug trade, illegal smuggling and whatnot. A common addiction in certain circles.”

“We both thought the blade was aimed for Ciri, right?” Geralt asked. “Hear me out, but I’m not so sure that was the case.”

“I’m listening,” Jaskier assured him.

“Fisstech seems like it would be counterintuitive to use to poison a blade. On most humans, the effects seem to be temporary euphoria, that seems to also be a boost of energy that makes them more talkative and alert, right?”

“Okay, but that seems like it would be more useful for an interrogation than just a quick assassination. I don’t think they wanted to interrogate Ciri.”

Geralt nodded. “On Witchers though, and even on you, it had the opposite effect. A sedative, rather than a stimulant. I don’t think it would have had that effect on Ciri, but it clearly did on you, and would have on me as well.”

“You think they were trying to capture all of us? Maybe interrogate Ciri, but maybe not?”

“That’s definitely a possibility. And we know Nilfgaard wants Ciri captured alive. They sent a doppler to retrieve her from Brokkllion.”

"Can this old Keep survive another siege if they find out she's here?" Jaskier asked.

"Every Witcher we know still lives is here, Jaskier, and once the first snow falls by the end of this week, the pass will be impenetrable for months. And if they did come in the spring, we might have a few mages we can ask for help. You and Ciri aren't alone here."

Jaskier nodded. "I suppose I had better not skip any more training sessions. I'll need a new weapon. This one has to go. I wouldn't have hurt Ciri, but I bought it for the unknown contract and it needs to go." 

"I'm pretty sure it wasn't worth the coin you did spend on it, one drop away from shattering in ways best not imagined."

"I've had at least one break before I got around to using them for the intended purpose. Yen's concern for my safety might not have been unwarranted. I just- I don't know, Geralt. I never really expected to survive this long and here we are." 

Geralt pulled Jaskier closer and gently kissed the top of his forehead.

“Ciri deserves to know the truth,” Jaskier said after a moment. “Or at least some of it. I don’t want to lie to her. We probably shouldn’t mention that Nilfgaard attacked Cintra because they wanted her, though. She doesn’t need that kind of guilt.”

“She already knows that Nilfgaard was hunting for her. She might already know she plays a role in why Cintra fell. And if she asks, you’re right, we can’t lie.

* * *

That was how Ciri found them when she burst into the room. "Jask!" she shouted, throwing herself at them.

“Hey, Cub,” Jaskier said. “How was your bath?”

“It was great! The hot springs are so  _ big _ . I could  _ swim  _ in them!” She shifted so that she was sitting between Jaskier and Geralt on the floor. “Thank you for playing hide and seek with me yesterday, Jas. I had a lot of fun.”

Jaskier swallowed thoughtfully. “I’m glad you had fun. Before we go downstairs, there's something I wanted to talk to you about. It's okay if you're mad at me about it, but I want you to know the truth."

"Is it about the prophecy?" Ciri asked. "Something weird happened, before I found Geralt."

"That could be related," Jaskier agreed. "I wanted you to hear from me, and not from someone else, that it wasn't an accident that I found you and Geralt in the road. I never intended to have anything to do with Nilfgaard, but I used to be an assassin, not by choice, and they had a tracker on you. I didn't know it was you, and I wouldn't have hurt you, Ciri. You're precious to us."

"I know you wouldn't hurt me. You caught that poisoned blade to protect me."

He flinched, looking away from her. He couldn’t keep watching her smile, not when she didn’t  _ know _ . “Sweetheart, I wasn’t there to save you, just by chance. I was sent there to  _ kill you. _ ” He didn't deserve her joy. She was a precious child, she deserved the world.

"But you didn't, Jas. You didn't hurt me. You  _ saved _ me. Wasn't it your plan that gave Yennefer enough time to portal me away from there? I wish you hadn't been hurt because of me. So many people are dead. It’s my fault." 

Jaskier hugged Ciri tighter. “ _ No,  _ Darling. It’s not your fault.  _ It’s not _ .”

“Nilfgaard wants you for the power in your blood. That’s their greed, not because of anything you did,” Yennefer cut in. “We’re going to teach you control so that you don’t hurt anyone accidentally. That’s on us, to teach you responsibly.”

Ciri shifted, tucking herself into Jaskier’s front and making herself smaller. “Some kids I knew from Cintra attacked me outside the village where Geralt found me. And I couldn’t control whatever it is that’s inside of me. It was like something was controlling me, shouting at them words that I had never heard before.”

Jaskier pulled her even closer, already knowing what it was that she was going to say. “Verily, I say unto you,” he whispered. “The time of the sword and the axe is nigh, the era of the wolf’s blizzard. The time of the White Chill and the White Light is nigh. The time of Madness and the time of Contempt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First chapter update of the new year! I do regret that it's taken so long to get this written, I don't even know where this month has gone. Mental health just be like that, I guess. I know this chapter doesn't do a lot, but I'm hoping that we'll be able to pick up the pace of the storytelling. Your comments inspire me to write more, especially what you want to see more of (but pls don't ask when the next update will be, I want it to be written as much as you do and asking when that'll be just kills the energy to write.) I don't have a schedule or a buffer, chapters go up as soon as they're done. 
> 
> If you're here for Witcher Jask and haven't read the geraskier bang fic Hyrule and I coauthored, you should check it out!  
> [Destiny Denied](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28795179).


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter taught me something important about my own on and off writer's block, and that sometimes the answer can be something as simple as scrapping what you have and starting over from a different pov.
> 
> This potentially deserves a slight warning about the inherent tragedy of being a witcher and Jaskier's view of himself.

Vesemir arrived in the courtyard after Letho, Gaetan, and Aiden had already started stretching for morning practice. He knew from past winters that Aiden and Gaetan respectively would likely arrive first, though he had been unable to predict whether or not Letho’s presence would change Gaetan’s habits from the previous winter, or how Gaetan and Aiden would affect each other.

The cat school  _ was  _ known for being significantly more independent than the wolf school, and Vesemir had heard unfortunate rumors before about Cat School members even, rarely, taking contracts on each other, although he doubted the last two members were capable of following such paths to destruction. They may not have wintered together before, but knew them both to be different from their much more feral former schoolmates.

He had decided after a brief inventory of food supplies that it would be a good morning to send the Witchers on hunting trips rather than attempt another sparring session. Jaskier wasn’t ready to spar with the rest of the witchers yet, and Vesemir wasn’t ready for Jaskier’s, or Geralt’s, reactions to any attempt to force him into doing so. So he would send the rest of the Witchers hunting and then test Jaskier’s endurance before helping him find a better weapon in the armory and training him.

The oldest Witcher knew why the younger witchers had their preferred pairs to work in. They would need to be broken out of the habit of only working in those pairs to keep their skills fresh and prevent any bad habits from developing, but he supposed that he could give them another day of comfort first.

Eskel and Coen arrived shortly after Vesemir. Eskel as always right on time. Never early, and never late. After they had started sharing Eskel's quarters, Coen always walked with Eskel to morning practice, which meant that he too also always arrived exactly on time.

Lambert arrived next. He didn't always arrive after Eskel. He seemed to just arrive between a quarter of an hour to half an hour after Aiden, giving the Cat the opportunity to greet the morning in solitude. Sometimes that meant he arrived well before Eskel, and sometimes after.

Vesemir supposed that it shouldn't surprise him that Geralt and Jaskier were late.

His young wolves had been wintering in Kaer Morhen for eighty years, and raised there for twenty years before that. They were his children. The rules didn't change very often, and they respected him enough to follow the big ones because they were for their safety. And trusted Kaer Morhen enough to bring home the last members of other schools.

Vesemir wouldn't lie and say that the childhood of his pups hadn't been harder than it needed to be. He did however admit, only to himself, that he was a bit glad that there would be no more new Witchers. That Verin wasn't alive to purposefully harm any more of the pups.

Jaskier was new and different. He hadn't had a childhood surrounded by other Witchers, hadn't spent twenty years learning how to fight with their weapons or make their potions or cast their signs and fight their monsters. He hadn't even known he was Witcher-kind because the guild that had made him had also lied and ostracized him for being like Letho and not like their own blasphemous version.

Geralt and Jaskier didn't arrive until after Lambert started shouting increasingly rude insults at their window. That was fine, because they arrived before Vesemir would have had to go fetch them himself and Geralt already knew what kind of trouble they would be in if he had to fetch them down.

There were more important things to do than run the Gauntlet a dozen times.

"Instead of sparring, I have something else in mind for you all to do today," Vesemir said. He waited for the Cats to stand up from their increasingly ridiculous stretches before explaining. "Our food stores need more attention before the first big snowstorm. Seeing as you all survived your last season on the path in your preferred pairs, and we have all winter to mix things up, I see no reason not to let you go hunting in the same pairs you arrived as. With one exception. Geralt, you’ll be hunting with Eskel and Coen. Jaskier will be helping me in the armory.”

Jaskier wasn’t ready for that kind of a hunt, though. Not without a real weapon, and not before Vesemir knew his skill level. He could go on a normal hunting trip when Vesemir could be absolutely certain he could participate without slowing anyone down.

The snakelet shifted, turning towards Vesemir. “Why do I have to stay here?” he asked. “Why can’t I go hunting with Geralt?”

Vesemir sighed internally. Glancing in Geralt’s direction, it seemed unlikely that his pup had any intention of letting Jaskier join him on the hunt, but he also seemed content to let the old instructor deal with this. He hadn’t even mentioned the griffin out loud yet, part of his reasoning for pairing Geralt up with Eskel and Coen.

The griffin had to be dealt with. It was too likely that it would get too close and attack the castle, or retreat back down the mountain and do something that would endanger the village at the bottom of the path. It wouldn’t go to waste, though. Not like they so often did when Witchers had to hunt them in the wild and couldn’t make use of the entire griffin. Many parts of the griffin were useful for alchemy, and they would eat most of the rest, and make useful items from what remained when they were done.

“You need a better weapon, Jaskier. Not the dagger you showed us yesterday. Not all the monsters in these mountains have entered hibernation yet, this is a safety precaution. Eskel, I need you, Coen, and Geralt to take the path further up the mountain today to hunt the griffin we’ve been seeing signs of. Letho, Gaetan, take the path behind the keep. Aiden, Lambert-”

“The path beyond the lake. I  _ know _ , old man. C’mon, Aiden. I can’t wait for it to freeze so I can fish.” With an eye roll, Lambert turned and walked out of the courtyard, Aiden hesitating a moment before following.

Vesemir mentally counted to ten. Lambert was a prickly asshole and that was normal. After decades, he followed a pretty predictable pattern. He was always more prickly right at the start of winter, like he had to re-warm up to all of them every year. His biggest regret, he supposed, was letting the other trainers beat the emotions out of their trainees so firmly.

There were less than a dozen Witchers left in the whole world, and Lambert and Geralt were the least in touch with their emotions.

“I imagine you’re expecting us back for afternoon chores?” Letho asked.

Vesemir nodded. He was pretty sure he knew exactly what they were doing, especially with the way Eskel and Coen were also seeming to hold a conversation without words and subtly glancing in the direction of the gates. “The afternoon chore today will be preparing the meat for cooking, so while I hope you all get back by midafternoon at the latest, if you’re out longer that’s fine too.” He knew what pairs he was sending them out in, it would have been a surprise if they all came back as soon as they were done with their hunting, and that didn’t bother him. The Path was hard enough, Winter was supposed to be their chance to relax and do what they wanted within reason.

Letho nodded, and with that he and Gaetan headed for the path that continued through a gate behind the keep.

“I think that’s our cue to leave,” Eskel whispered to Coen. “Griffin in the foothills of the mountain, Vesemir?”

“Right where the last one was. We don’t need it having the chance to mate, especially with a child in the Keep.”

Coen nodded, and he and Eskel slipped out the gate and headed up the path, leaving only Geralt, and Jaskier alone with Vesemir.

He’d been right then. Vesemir wondered if Jaskier was even in a state of mind to appreciate the fact that the other witchers had purposefully left this conversation to the privacy of just the three of them.

“You need to stay here, Jask,” Geralt said after a moment. “Within the walls of the courtyard and the keep is the safest place for you, and I don’t want Ciri to get nervous without the rest of us here.” 

“She’ll be fine,” Jaskier snapped.

Vesemir could sense that while Jaskier wasn’t afraid, the discomfort in his scent did suggest that he was ill at ease. Perhaps at the thought of being all alone with him? He could understand that, if the young snakelet’s mind had mostly retained his reaction upon arriving at the keep, and Vesemir did regret that he had reacted so harshly without understanding. Jaskier hadn’t deserved that from him.

There was also the likelihood that Jaskier had begun comparing him to whoever had been in charge of running and training within the assassin’s guild. As bad as the old Wolf trainers had been before the pogrom, there was no way those who had kidnapped Jaskier from his bed and stood by while the rest of Jaskier’s classmates had screamed themselves to death during their false trials were not worse.

“She has been surprisingly resilient,” Geralt agreed. “But I’m still not going to bring you on a griffin hunt unarmed and unprepared. Let Vesemir help you find some weapons, maybe get some training in. I’ll see you this afternoon, okay?”

“Fine.” Jaskier wasn’t happy about it, but he seemed to realize that Geralt wasn’t going to change his mind.

Vesemir glanced away from Geralt and Jaskier in a poor attempt to give them a semblance of privacy. The scene before him felt personal, and he wasn’t sure he should be witnessing it, but he also couldn’t leave. 

Despite not looking, he could still tell when Geralt reached out to clasp Jaskier’s hands. “I love you, but I have to go, okay? I would appreciate it if you could stay out of trouble. Listen to Vesemir, alright? He’s not going to hurt you.”

Jaskier nodded. “I’ll behave,” he grumbled. “Stay safe on your Griffin hunt.”

When Vesemir glanced back at them, Geralt nodded to him then turned around to catch up with Eskel and Coen outside the gate.

Leaving Jaskier and Vesemir entirely alone in the courtyard. Jaskier seemed to notice this as well, and the anxiety in the snakelet’s scent increased. Agitation, uncertainty. They didn’t surprise Vesemir. Jaskier didn’t know yet where he stood, how could he? Vesemir could only guess that the only way to fix that would be time and consistency, the same as he had with all the Witchers.

“Do you see the well worn obstacle path past the front gate?” Vesemir asked eventually, long after the rest of the Witchers were well out of earshot, and when it became apparent that Jaskier wasn’t going to fill the silence. 

Jaskier glanced at Vesemir and then looked in the direction he seemed to be referring to. “I guess?” he said after a moment of consideration.

“That’s the Gauntlet. I want you to go run it, and watch your footing. Witchers can survive a broken neck, but it’s hardly a pleasant experience.” Vesemir knew that Lambert still remembered young trainees who broke their necks running the path, and sometimes misremembered experienced Witchers doing the same.

Witchers were not quite so easy to kill, for all that perhaps his pups thought they were. Witchers were not easy to kill, and yet there was only a handful who remained. What did that say about them and the mutations the mages had originally designed for them? What did that say about the mages?

“Go on.”

Jaskier studied Vesemir, and it seemed like perhaps he was going to ask a question, but then he didn’t. “Is that trail marked in some way?”

“You’ll know it.” It was a well worn trail, but the catwalks over ravines would be fairly obvious. It might have been better if Jaskier was going to run it the first time alongside someone more experienced, but what he didn’t know was that Vesemir was hardly going to leave him unsupervised.

Breaking his neck wasn’t an entirely impossible outcome and Geralt would probably kill them both if this went badly. But Vesemir wasn’t expecting it to. There was no reason for this not to be a perfectly reasonable sampling of Jaskier’s stamina and endurance.

“Alright.” Jaskier took a moment, and then he took off on the path at a light jog.

* * *

It wasn’t an impossible obstacle course. That was the first thing Jaskier noticed as he carefully chose his path across a catwalk of a fallen tree that crossed a ravine. Dangerous if one didn’t know what they were doing, certainly, but the trek was not an impossible journey. It was an adventure across a well cared for Path through the forest and around the mountain the Witchers called home.

The Path was not just well marked. Someone went out of their way to take care of it. He could see remains of old catwalks long since rotted away, but it was clear which ones were fallen recently enough to be safe and which paths should most certainly be avoided.

It was a cold morning, indicative of the fact that snow would most certainly be falling in the mountain without too much delay, by the end of the week at the latest, and yet it wasn’t unbearable. There was frost on the grass and the leaves had all fallen, and yet they did not prevent the well worn path from being clearly visible.

How old was this path? Jaskier wondered. He knew Geralt was decades upon decades old, likely older than he himself was, and Letho had probably already been old a hundred years before when he’d killed the King of Redania.

He knew that Geralt’s hair was not white because of his age, which meant that Vesemir on the other hand  _ was  _ so much older than Eskel, Lambert, and Geralt given how he did seem to be so old as to have started growing grey. So how old was he? Two centuries? Three? More? Was this path as old as he was? Or older even still?

Jaskier was being watched. Followed. He supposed that it was probably Vesemir, because if this was a sort of test, or potentially as dangerous as life threatening, then the old Witcher probably just wanted to properly supervise him.

That should have bothered him more than it did. The Assassins' Guild had watched his actions closely for decades, watching and waiting for the moment he would reveal his betrayal of their guild so they could strike him down.

He didn't think Vesemir was looking for the same thing, but Jaskier couldn't bring himself to care if he was. He had expected to be short lived from the very moment his classmates had died screaming while he had screamed away his humanity.

It seemed to take a long time for the path to lead him back to the courtyard, but when it finally did he found Vesemir standing against the wall, almost as though he had hardly moved, though Jaskier was certain that was not the case.

Jaskier’s suspicions were confirmed when Vesemir spoke. “Your stamina is good. Your speed could be better, but we have the rest of the winter to work on that. Go run it again, and then we’ll head over to the armory.”

* * *

Coen led the way further up the mountain with Eskel and Geralt behind him. Eskel was the most familiar with the path, but he was busy subtly watching Geralt and trying to gauge his brother’s emotional state.

“Did you guys know that our school was named because the first witchers to explore the Dragon Mountains had to clear nest after nest of griffins before they could settle in Kaer Seren? They had the idea to add griffin blood to our mutagens sometime after that but we were known as the Griffin School before then.”

“Hmm,” Geralt grumbled. He glanced back in the direction of the keep even though they could no longer make it out, just as he had been doing every other minute since he’d finally caught up to them.

“Jaskier is going to be fine, Geralt,” Eskel said. “You  _ know  _ Vesemir isn’t going to hurt him.”

“I know.”

Eskel considered. Geralt wasn’t lying, he could smell that. That did not seem to have stopped him from smelling anxious, which meant that he had guessed incorrectly about what had Geralt so anxious about leaving Jaskier.

“He seems to have made a full recovery from the fisstech, if that’s what you’re worried about? Vesemir won’t work him harder than he can handle. He’s good about knowing where all of our limits are, even when we don’t.” Even when Lambert was in trouble, or he and Geralt were competing against each other for Vesemir’s infrequent words of praise, Vesemir never worked them harder than they were capable of. Lambert was young enough that he didn’t remember the other trainers very well, beyond Varin’s torture, but Eskel had plenty memories of other trainers pushing until even the seasoned Witchers collapsed under their regimens. But Vesemir had never been like that.

“I  _ know, _ ” Geralt snarled. “Eskel, stop.”

Eskel raised an eyebrow. “It can’t possibly be that you don’t trust Jaskier to still be there when we get back. Unless you’re expecting him to run after us even with Vesemir having things for him to do while we’re gone?”

If Witchers had not had the ability to blush boiled from their skin, Eskel was certain from Geralt’s scent of embarrassment that he would have flushed. “He’s done it before,” Geralt mumbled under his breath, but nowhere near quietly enough for Eskel or even Coen to stop being able to hear him.

“Yesterday notwithstanding, I doubt Jaskier knows Vesemir well enough yet to pull that off,” Coen said. “That was a little strange this morning, though. Seemed like he was almost afraid of the old wolf.”

“I can’t imagine how he must be feeling,” Eskel found himself saying. “Our training all those years ago were bad enough, but we all knew what to expect before the first trial. But to find out after a hundred years that we were something entirely different than what we thought we were? It’s possible he’s expecting Vesemir to be like the guild leaders he’s familiar with.”

“Jaskier didn’t say anything of the like, and I wouldn’t tell you if he had.” Geralt was glowering at them now, but he was still listening, which was more than Eskel would have expected of him if they’d been having this discussion even a few years earlier.

“You know that you can talk to us, Geralt, don’t you?” Eskel remembered being a lot happier once he’d started spending time with Coen, and Lambert the same with Aiden. Geralt had changed slowly over the last two decades he’d been traveling with his bard, but he was still the grumpy bastard who had been Eskel’s best friend for a hundred years. “Since clearly I’m not a mind reader, why don’t you tell what really has you so agitated that you keep looking over your shoulder.”

Geralt continued glowering. “Let’s just find this griffin. Coen? Any sign?”

Coen didn’t need to answer, because in that moment of silence, they could hear the call of a griffin in the direction they were heading. A moment later, there was an answering call from further down the mountain, in a similar direction to where Lambert and Aiden had headed for their hunting journey.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this??? A new chapter already???
> 
> Your comments feed me and sometimes, sometimes the words exist and it's a miracle.
> 
> I researched chicken eggs for this chapter. Among other things.

After finishing the second run through the Gauntlet, Jaskier found himself in the armory with Vesemir. It was larger than he was expecting from the decrepit keep, if he was being honest.

There were melee weapons neatly hanging from the two long walls, sorted by length. One wall seemed to be steel based weapons and the other silver and metals he didn't recognize. The far wall displayed other types of weapons, bows, crossbows, arrows, bolts, and other things. 

Steel daggers and knives and other short blades were closest to the door, and Jaskier found himself wandering over to examine them.

"Each school trained its students in specific preferred styles, but I won't do you the disservice of assuming you were trained in Letho's style," Vesemir said.

Jaskier shrugged. "I don't know what style Letho learned. I definitely prefer weapons shorter and lighter than Geralt's, though." He studied the shortest knife on the wall. It was a simple weapon, but he could tell that it was sturdier than the weapon in his boot. "They didn't teach us about monsters, didn't insinuate anything about monster contracts. Actively deterred us from doing anything they didn't specifically order, which were mostly contracts on humans as ordered by the highest bidders." He hadn't minded going through so many cheap weapons, hadn't cared if the sloppiness might get him killed.

There hadn't been any enjoyment left in life until he'd found Geralt and there had been something of a thrill in needlessly risking his life.

He couldn't do that now. Not with two loves to spend forever with and a child who had lost too many people already.

"Geralt usually uses one sword at a time, leaving a hand free for signs in a pinch even when most of the time it seems as though he's forgotten he has them," Jaskier said. "I only learned a single sign in training, Somne. They made us practice it until we could get it to consistently fatal levels. Is that really a mercy? Or just a stain on our blackened souls? I killed one of the false Witchers with it while drugged out of my mind and set another pair on fire, because the only sign I picked up from Geralt after twenty years was Igni." He reached for a dagger slightly longer than his own and glanced at Vesemir.

The old witcher was staring at him, a look of unabashed horror on his face.

Vesemir was unarmed, and Jaskier couldn’t help but feel relief because what if this was the confession that made him too much for anyone to want to deal with. They were in a room full of weapons, however. That could change at a single moment.

The expression didn’t leave Vesemir’s face, and Jaskier found himself turning away again to examine something on the wall because he couldn’t stand to watch whatever decision the old wolf came to.

“Are you going to kill me?” Jaskier whispered when there was  _ still  _ no motion in the reflection of the steel.

“No, I’m not going to kill you,” Vesemir said. “I’m going to mourn the child you didn’t get to be, as I have with all other witchers who enter Kaer Morhen. And I’ll mourn the children whose lives the Assassin’s Guild stole, as I have done with all of those who might have been Witchers, and all those who were. For all that our training was unpleasant, none were so cruel as to actively encourage the trainees to murder each other.”

Jaskier shuddered. “Though I didn’t know why, at the time I was quickly excused from that particular set of lessons. There’s no point competing to put your partner in a coma before they can do the same to you if the magic doesn’t work on you.They didn’t even refer to me as one of their witchers. Just a bard with some combat skills they required be used for their purposes.”

“Axii and Somne don’t work on witchers,” Vesemir said. “I don’t know what they did to the mutagens they altered from Letho’s school, but it sounds like they removed certain resistances to magic. If you were in their first test group after stealing the mutagens, and the only one to survive it, then it sounds likely it’s actually possible they gave you the most recent version of mutagens from Letho’s school. Perhaps even unaltered, but I don’t think we can know that for sure. It also sounds like they knew you were different from the rest and attempted to prevent you from reaching your true potential as the last witcher created. If you want, we might be able to check later. I could compare a sample of your blood against Letho’s in the laboratory.”   
  
“That sounds like it could be useful,” Jaskier agreed. If he lived that long, of course. It would be nice to find out what exactly the assassin’s guild had done to him.

He sighed. “What am I supposed to be looking for? I’m used to using cheap knives and daggers, short and flimsy and not worth the coin I’ve spent on them. I’ve never fought a monster, but that sounds like a good way to get eaten.”

“I personally don’t recommend anything shorter than a good short sword for close quarters combat. Coen, Geralt and Eskel prefer greatswords that they can use one or two hand grips with without hindering their ability to cast signs. Coen and Eskel use signs more than Geralt but that’s a personal choice. Lambert used to mainly use greatswords as well, but he’s picked up Aiden’s skill at knife throwing so he’s added that to his repertoire, along with his affinity for bombs. Aiden fights with short swords and throwing knives and generally has a ridiculous amount of sharp items on his body at any given moment. Gaetan fights similarly. Letho duel wields with short swords, although the second is always something he can throw or sheathe quickly if he’s going to use a sign or two.”

Jaskier nodded. “I’d like to learn the rest of the signs, at least so I can choose for myself how to implement them in my own fighting style. But it wouldn’t bother me if I never used another Somne.”

“We can work on that this winter,” Vesemir promised. “But I don’t think you should write off on Somne yet. There’s nothing wrong with protecting yourself with any means necessary, and as long as you can control the amount of power you put into it, being able to nonviolently remove yourself from an unfortunate scenario is not a bad thing. If by the spring, you are still uncomfortable with using Somne, none of us will begrudge you for not using it.”

Jaskier nodded and walked further down the wall to the longer one handed blades. He was most familiar with knives and daggers for getting close and personal with the guild's targets, but he didn't want to have to get that close to a monster if he was going to fill a Witcher's contract.

Assuming that Geralt still let him travel with him, come spring.

What would he do if Geralt did not let him travel with him? He supposed that there wasn’t any reason for Geralt not to allow it, but there was always the potential.

He needed to learn everything he possibly could, so that he could prove that he wasn’t going to continue being a hindrance for Geralt. Prove that he wasn’t going to just get himself killed or get Geralt killed, as Geralt had always worried about when he thought Jaskier was just a bard following him for stupid reasons.

He was a bard, and maybe his ideas were stupid sometimes, but he could be  _ more  _ than that.

Jaskier pulled a random short sword down from the wall, longer than any weapon he had ever been comfortable wielding. Would any of the skills he already had translate to this new weapon? There was only one way to find out. “Is this a good sword?” he asked.

“All of the weapons in here were weapons forged by Witchers or for them, and tended by us every year. They’re easily among the highest quality weapons on the Continent, and I would trust the lives of my pups to any of the blades in this room.”

Jaskier knew that was high praise for a weapon. He had never had any respect for the weapons that he’d purchased for his contracts, and he knew that part of that had been because he hadn’t been much for respecting himself. For so long he hadn’t cared what would happen to him, not until he’d met Geralt and his life had changed for so much the better.

He turned around to face Vesemir again, extending the sword so that he could get a better feel for the weight of it in his hand.

It reminded him of being a child in Oxenfurt, and learning how to use a rapier because that was expected of him as a noble child. He could almost recall lessons with his favorite instructors.

“Do you want to go outside and give the sword a try against one of the training dummies?” Vesemir asked.

Jaskier found that Vesemir looked a lot more calm than he had earlier and he appreciated that because it made him feel less like he might be in immediate danger. “Okay.”

They headed outside, but Jaskier had barely moved to stand in front of the training dummy before he was turning in the direction of the front gate as a harsh breeze blew out of the forest and towards them. It seemed as though the entire forest had suddenly gone deathly quiet.

Something was not right and Jaskier could feel it all the way to his bones, though he could not have said what it was. “Vesemir- we need to  _ go _ .”

Vesemir raised an eyebrow. “Where are we going, Snakelet?”

Jaskier closed his eyes. He couldn’t identify the source of why he felt so ill at ease, but he pointed in the direction it seemed to be coming from, and opened his eyes to find that he was pointing towards the path of the Gauntlet. “I think we need to hurry,” he said, unsure why he felt such urgency.

“I’ll be right behind you,” Vesemir said, already turning towards where his sword was lying on the half wall in its sheath.

* * *

Letho stared at the giant nest of shattered eggs. He wasn’t entirely sure how he and Gaetan had ended up here, but here they were, staring at the ruined nest of a griffin pair. There was one small egg that remained mostly untouched, one hairline crack along the top of it. “What the  _ fuck _ .”

The eggshells in the nest were all a deep royal blue.

The Viper picked the egg up so that he could better examine it. It was still warm. It was an ovular egg, dark blue mottled with flecks of gold. "These are not the color of any griffin eggs I’ve ever seen before. Archgriffin eggs are a maroon with gold speckles and regular ones are brown and gold. But I haven't seen anything like this."

"Vesemir didn't specify what kind of Griffin he'd sent them hunting, but it's kind of important to mention whether it's an archgriffin or not. On the other hand, this nest was likely destroyed in a territorial dispute, which means there could easily be more than two griffins in these mountains," Gaetan said.

"Think the Griffin Witcher can identify this egg?" Some might comment on the assumption that the name of the school meant such a thing, but Letho would have been more surprised if it hadn't meant something to that effect. 

“Even if it's nothing weird, Griffin eggs are a delicacy in some parts. Good contract money." Gaetan licked his lips.

"I'm not gonna tell Coen you were going to eat the egg if he comes up with any reason not to."

Gaetan rolled his eyes. "I thought bird eggs were your favorite."

“... Sometimes,” Letho confessed. “On that note, we probably should actually hunt something before we head back. No one else is going to be back yet, and we’re going to need more than whatever this egg is to show for our efforts.”

* * *

Lambert and Aiden were having a very successful hunt. They’d already managed to bring down a deer, a handful of rabbits, and some squirrels, and they hadn’t even been gone more than an hour or two.

“You know, Aiden, the old man doesn’t expect us back until late this afternoon. We could finish up here and just bask in what could be the last warm sunshine until after all the snow melts next spring.”

There was an offended squawk above them, and Aiden tracked the movement of the bird before bringing it down from midair with a well thrown knife. “That sounds incredibly appealing.”

Lambert walked forward to retrieve the bird. “What’s that over there?” He pointed towards the edge of the tree line, where there was a strange formation of dead grass at the edge of a ravine.

“Well, Lambert, I’d say it looks something like a griffin’s nest, if I was expecting to find a griffin’s nest. Which I’m not expecting, because we weren’t the ones sent on a griffin hunt. What do you think it is?”

Lambert walked closer towards it. “It’s definitely a nest, but all the eggs are shattered. Red mottled with gold. Archgriffins, right? The old man didn’t say anything about the griffin in the area being an archgriffin.”

“We did leave before your brother could ask for any further details about the hunt,” Aiden reminded him. “Not all griffins have permanent mating pairs, but you would think a territorial dispute of the magnitude resulting in shattering another’s eggs would be a little more obvious than just a ‘there’s a griffin in the area’. Doesn’t that strike you as a little bit odd?”

Lambert didn’t have the time to ponder all the potential intricacies of mating archgriffin behavior because there was a loud screech above them from the direction of the higher part of the mountain, which was then followed by a second, equally irate screech in the direction of where Eskel, Coen, and Geralt were supposed to be.

  
“We’re fucked,” Lambert said, drawing his sword. There was not one, but  _ two,  _ archgriffins headed in their direction.


End file.
